This essay is an account of the author's life in rural Idaho during the late 20th and early 21st century. The essay chronicles the author's experience as a young woman in a community that was predominantly patriarchal and examines the ways the author had to adapt in order to function within such an oppressive system. The story details the author's decision to work in the wilderness as a means of seeking spiritual transformation, but, instead, she finds herself confronting the same intersections of class and gender that she had been raised with in her hometown.