The Best Shows With Role Models For Girls

For decades, Wonder Woman has been the ultimate feminist role model. While caring and compassionate, she also embodies the ideal of being strong, not allowing pressure to conform to traditional female roles affect you, and standing proudly against bigotry and chauvinism.

Wonder Woman I think transformed the image of women in America and what we saw women as capable of becoming. Since the 1940's when she was created, America has seen a great second wave of feminism (the first being the Suffragettes of the late 19th early 20th century), with Betty Friedan and other feminists opposing the idea that women can and should only be housewives and that the working world was for men only. However people might feel about feminists today, they are responsible for access to birth control, women being allowed to wear pants, and the funding and promotion of girls' high school and college sports, among other things. Today, feminists follow in these footsteps by fighting for equal pay for equal work, sex education, better contraceptives, advances in women's health, LGBT rights, minority rights, and against sexist oppression and human trafficking on a global scale. I believe that Wonder Woman carries all these ideals because she is a superhero and Amazon who fights oppression and injustice whenever she sees it.

While wonder woman is timeless in my opinion, in modern times she is best seen as part of the Justice League, along with Superman, Batman, Hawk GIRL and a (now black, which I think is a great improvement) Green Lantern. Her and Hawk Girl make very good feminist role models on the show. And not only do they fight like soldiers, but they also feel comfortable expressing their feelings, so I think it shows that you can be feminine and sensitive and still be a great fighter.

Similar in character design to Wonder Woman, she is the female counterpart of He-Man from He-Man: Masters of the Universe. I think it's cool that a show that seemed to have a girl unfriendly title and cast went in this direction. It shows that action cartoons for children can be empowering and don't have to be chauvinist to succeed. She-Ra is a really cool character (her horse and sword, most notably) and leads a rebellion against an unjust tyrant, who turned out to be Skeletor's mentor. That makes her officially cooler than He-Man because she's fighting against the master who taught Skeletor everything he knows! I found her adventures to be entertaining and not overly preachy about feminism the way some (it varies widely depending on the writer) less well-written Wonder Woman stories can get.

I loved this show as a kid in the 90's. Xena is like the female equivalent of Hercules or some other epic hero. While Greek mythology shows women as terrible and destructive (even though they are now seen as positive by feminists, the Amazons were really villains that signified the ancient Greek terror of female power), such as Pandora unleashing all the world's evil (more about her in this Hub) the Goddesses starting the Trojan War over their own vanity and jealousy, etc., Xena is told as if the writer imagines this was not so and that there existed an ancient epic tale with a positively shown female hero and other Amazons who are similarly loved, not despised or feared. 

Xena teaches girls about the importance of friendship and staying by your friends with Gabriella and Xena's friendship playing a prominent role in the show's drama. 

No discussion of good role models for girls is complete, in my opinion, without mentioning this anime show. It has massive appeal and worldwide fame and is probably the world's most famous and recognizable anime that's targeted at a female audience. 

Sailor Moon is great in my opinion because it shows that girls with many varying personalities can be friends and work together. At times they don't get along, in the beginning Raye wants to be the leader (she is admittedly more qualified than Serena), and all the girls have such different personalities and interests and goals in life that it's almost a wonder they're friends at all. Also, because this show has a variety of personalities represented in the main characters, any girl can look up at the screen and say "that's me". Personally, I can say I've identified with aspects of each character because they're all extremely relatable. 

Sailor Moon is also of note in that she fights enemies with magic, while previous above mentioned shows had heroines who usually fought with physical attacks. Not fighting physically in my opinion shows a more evolved ideal, she doesn't have to be masculine at all to battle evil and can retain her girlishness. Sailor Moon also shows that it's okay to cry, expressing your feelings is good because it brings people together who share them, and that you can always count on friendship and love. 

Notable in being the only female demon/vampire killer in western, Live-Action TV (anime has Sango from Inuyasha, and Saya from Blood: The Last Vampire, among many others). TV Tropes was started by Buffy fans and it still remains popular in internet discussions and fanfiction. It not only features a strong heroine but also deals with gay and bisexual themes, which was rare and groundbreaking for a mainstream, highly popular TV Show. I think this show is teen melodrama done in a good way, and the fantastic/supernatural elements set it apart from teen soap operas and make it less boring while it still tackles many of the themes of such.

Noted for showing that girls can be starship captains, it also contains feminist role models in 7/9 and B'ellana, who is one of few important female Klingons in the Star Trek universe (and played by a Hispanic actress, and also as for minorities, it has Tuvok, one of the only black Vulcans in Star Trek). Also, an episode that I found interesting and cool was one wherein Amelia Earhart is found as a frozen relic in an alien tomb and revived, showing the history of women in aviation and how Amelia inspired female pilots through history, including Captain Janeway herself. Janeway is a competent, intelligent leader who, as a feminist role model, never gives up her dignity, pride, and determination to get her ship back to Earth.