The women started to cut back (3)
I believe the answer is:
mow
'cut back' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the women started to' is the wordplay.
'the women' becomes 'w' (standard abbreviation).
'started' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'to' becomes 'mo' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'w' put after 'mo' is 'MOW'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mow that I've seen before include "Cut (e.g. grass)" , "Cut down, usually grass" , "'Cut down, hay, say (3)'" , "Scythe" , "Cut grass or grain" .)