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You are here: Home / Kentucky / Adventurer / Adventuresses

Adventurer / Adventuresses

September 24th, 2017 by Sallie Bingham in Women, Kentucky 6 Comments

Part Two

Adventure / Adventuresses

Adventure / Adventuresses – photo by Sarah Katherine Simon, Women4Women Student Board

It used to be that “adventuress” meant a whore or at least was supposed to mean that; I would have been terrified as a girl of being labeled with the term. But we are (partly, halfway, maybe) in a new age, ushered in at least in part by the attitudes and possibilities following the passing of Title IX legislation. Sports, real sports, not half-court basketball, became a reality and then a necessity for girls, making physical strength not only acceptable but a goal. At the same time, the old term “tomboy” fell into disuse—we are all tomboys now. Or at least we can be.

Girls and women tend to adventure in groups, both for support, safety and for fun. One of my many single women friends told me, “I have much more fun with my girlfriends now than I ever did with the boys.” We speak the same language, after all, and often seem to share the same sense of humor. And so we go forth—as the young women who recently took a hike on Wolf Pen Mill Farm illustrate.

The hike they went on is not long, but it is down a rocky, winding road, through deeply overshadowing trees, in the lingering heat and humidity—and with bugs. At the end of the trail, they found the triple waterfall that is one of the reasons I placed the farm in conservation easements. The thick trees obscured their view of an enormous house on the bluff over the waterfall, an advance guard of the kind of high-cost, low-quality houses that would have consumed the land and polluted the creek that creates the waterfall.

These young women, for me, represent the future. Their picture replaces, if slowly, the cowboy image we have all been drawn to at some point in our lives, although now even the cowboys are vanquished by drought. Anyone in a Stetson riding an RV to round up cattle might agree with the Mike Herne song about giving up that enterprise. It ends with the line, “And the roof of the pickup cuts out too much of the sky.”

The threats we still face from the dominant culture, the insults and violence, have not stopped us. We still go for the outer air.

The sky here in Kentucky is blurred by heat, and humidity, and the enormous arc lights on thirty foot high stanchions that blare the presence of the interstate half a mile away, as though its twenty-four hour a day roar was not enough. But the young women walking the woods trail are not daunted, I imagine, by what is being destroyed around us all—or at least they have a few hours of respite walking to the triple waterfall.

We meet as women, when we are able to, too often in windowless concrete convention centers or halls. But we need light and air and the open road—or the open country. And we are finding ways to find it; look at the women rock climbing, running, swimming, mountaineering. Amazingly, the threats we still face from the dominant culture, the insults and violence, have not stopped us. We still go for the outer air.

All hail, adventuresses!

[Part One: Adventure / Adventurer]

Adventure / Adventuresses

Photo by Sarah Katherine Simon, Women4Women Student Board

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In Women, Kentucky Wolf Pen Branch Mill Farm Title 9 17 Favorites of 2017

A long and fruitful career as a writer began in 1960 with the publication of Sallie Bingham's novel, After Such Knowledge. This was followed by 15 collections of short stories in addition to novels, memoirs and plays, as well as the 2020 biography The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke.

Her latest book, Taken by the Shawnee, is a work of historical fiction published by Turtle Point Press in June of 2024. Her previous memoir, Little Brother, was published by Sarabande Books in 2022. Her short story, "What I Learned From Fat Annie" won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize in 2023 and the story "How Daddy Lost His Ear," from her forthcoming short story collection How Daddy Lost His Ear and Other Stories (September 23, 2025), received second prize in the 2023 Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition.

She is an active and involved feminist, working for women’s empowerment, who founded the Kentucky Foundation for Women, which gives grants to Kentucky artists and writers who are feminists, The Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, and the Women’s Project and Productions in New York City. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sallie's complete biography is available here.

Comments

  1. Bonnie Lee Black on Facebook says

    September 24th, 2017 at 10:08 am

    Dear Sallie — you and your readers may enjoy my newest post about my adventure in the Sahara Desert when our car broke down. Yay to adventuresses! http://www.bonnieleeblack.com/blog/

    Reply
  2. Sue says

    September 24th, 2017 at 11:55 am

    All Hail Sallie! Thank you for preserving such a special place in nature and for sharing it with other adventuresses.

    Reply
  3. Nadine Stafford on Facebook says

    September 24th, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    All hail!

    Reply
  4. Glenda Burrows on Facebook says

    September 24th, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    Thanks Sallie ,

    Reply
  5. Nancy Belle Fuller says

    September 24th, 2017 at 5:17 pm

    A few years ago my husband said to me….”Belle, you can’t just go trotting off to Egypt by yourself !” Well…I did and had a magnificent time!

    Reply
  6. Douglas Conwell says

    September 25th, 2017 at 7:12 pm

    Wherever and whenever we can, we must take the kind of steps taken by Sallie to preserve the sanctity of nature. Hats off to you! Just took a visual tour of your beautiful property in this blog from https://harrodscreek.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/wolf-pen-branch-mill-farm/ It is a few years old, but I trust the autumn photos reveal the same peace and beauty. So glad these gals got together for this event!
    Doug http://earthwalks.org/

    Reply

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