Maybe John Wayne provided the most iconic example, the image of the "manly man" inhabiting the American West during settlement. It was indeed a society dominated by men, so you could not blame a woman for feeling excluded.
Oregon author John Larison explores in fiction what that feeling might lead to, in the novel Whiskey When We're Dry. His main character, Jessilyn Harney, decides to pass as a man in society, for a variety of reasons. John Larison visits to talk about his fictional world and how it parallels this one.