Women’s History Month: 15 most influential women in TV history

Ellen DeGeneres

Everyone loves Ellen. She’s enthusiastic, fun loving, empathetic, generous, and — most of all — she’s completely genuine. People respond to how genuine she is, how completely herself and how giving she is of herself. Not many people are that comfortable in their own skin and she gives others the courage to celebrate what makes them unique.

More than anything, her decision to come out as gay in 1997 — at a time when her popularity and influence were high and homosexuality considered a taboo subject — cemented her as a cultural icon. The episode of her sitcom (Ellen, 1994) where her character controversially comes out made history.

In the aftermath, Oprah Winfrey moderated a flagship discussion between Ellen and her studio audience in which the issue of homosexuality could be openly debated.

Gillian Anderson

The X-files (1993) was a groundbreaking show in many ways, not least of all in the casting of Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully. Network executives wanted a leggy blonde to play Scully and were skeptical when creator Chris Carter cast short, curvy, unknown Anderson.

Anderson proved executives wrong and taught a generation of young women that they could be as strong, smart, and capable as their male peers. That they could work for the FBI or anywhere they wanted regardless social standards. And while Scully is iconic, Anderson is more than that.

In her latest endeavors, she portrays assertive, intelligent, intuitive, frankly intimidating women. In The Fall (2013) and Hannibal (2013), she is beautiful and cool, with an independent agency and zero cares for the sexism of her male peers.