Women in Power: How female characters are taking over television
updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:02
As fixers, lawyers and heads of law enforcement units, these women are not to be trifled with.
Over the years, television has come to become the ground for experimentation, for testing the waters of new directions, one that follows a wholly different formula than what has been proven to work. All of that has only given rise to more female characters being boldly placed in the main limelight, in leading and powerful roles, ahead of the usual dominant male figure. These are the women you do not want to mess with.
Scandal’s Olivia Pope for instance is the boss of the show, cleaning up everyone’s mess including that of the United States’ Commander in Chief. While largely a political fixer, Olivia also promptly stands up whenever sexism unleashes its nasty face or if misogyny peeks out from the darkness. Then there is the newly released show, CSI Cyber, which sees Avery Ryan at the head of the FBI cyber crime division solving some of the most shadowy offenses lurking in the Internet.
Now, in this golden age of television, women are no longer being cast as the domestic housewife, the character in the sidelines who falls apart at the mere mention of an impending complication, or the helpless victim. Instead, they’re leading the legion forward and proving that they too are an indomitable force to be reckoned with.
Who run the world? Women.
Tarandip Kaur
