Cowgirls are getting tied up in knots; REAL LIFE DANGEROUS JOBS FOR GIRLS WED, C4, 10pm.

NEW!

The sexual bias of the job description is all in the name "cowboy" and it's not a career where women rush to exercise their equal rights.

But this series of four new documentaries puts intrepid women in jobs where you don't expect to find them - starting with three female highfliers who have volunteered to muck in with the macho Brazilian cowboys of the Pantanal, the world's biggest flood plain.

Every rainy season, cowboys must herd the Pantanal's 4.5 million cattle across bulging rivers and up to higher ground and, for the first time in history, women are going to help.

Scottish management consultant Nicola Ross-Watt, 32, professional showjumper and Olympic hopeful Gemma Paternosta, 22, and ambitious barrister Laura Davidson, 31, are all eager to beat the macho men at their own game.

What follows is a gruelling and occasionally gruesome account of how the girls honed the skills they need for the 'comitiva', a four-day cattle drive herding 658 reluctant steers to the safety of higher ground.

Nicola Ross-Watt says the point where the women are left to drive half the herd across a fast-flowing river was every bit as dangerous as it looks.

She says: "Wewere lucky to survive. You can see how incredibly deep the water was. We thought the cows would go in one or two at a time but they were so frightened they wouldn't go in at first, then they all plunged in at once!

"Cows got tangled up in the reeds and it created a whirlpool effect.

"It was a dangerous situation and Gemma even had a cow in front of her saddle and over her horse's neck. We were just so grateful to have survived."

CAPTION(S):

ROUGH RIDERS... The girls must quickly get to grips with the tools of the job