HAPPY IWD: Our Guide To Television’s Ultimate Leading Ladies & Feminist Heroes

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Today is all about International Women’s Day – a glorious 24 hour long dedication to the wonderful women in our lives, and how we can make the world a more gender equal space, for all of us.

It’s also a day (for Punkee HQ, specifically) to reflect on the feminist influences and kick-ass women that have shaped pop culture today.

So we thought: what better day to recognise television’s greatest leading ladies and feminist heroes? Honouring the TV series’ that promote story-telling that doesn’t merely include, but champions you know, over half of the world’s population. Amazing fictional women in many shapes and sizes.

From the ultimate ‘strong female lead’ Buffy Summers, the fierce AF Arya Stark, Eleven and Dana Scully, to the perpetually hilarious Leslie Knope, Liz Lemon and Rebecca Bunch.

Here’s our ultimate list of television’s leading ladies:

Leslie Knope – Parks and Recreation


Elaine Benes – Seinfeld


Lorelai Gilmore – Gilmore Girls


Dana Scully – The X-Files


Liz Lemon – 30 Rock


Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson – Broad City


Eleven – Stranger Things


Blair Waldorf – Gossip Girl


Olivia Pope – Scandal


Samantha Jones – Sex & the City


Offred – The Handmaid’s Tale 


Jane Villanueva – Jane the Virgin


Michonne – The Walking Dead


Rosa Diaz  – Brooklyn 99


Tina Belcher – Bob’s Burgers


Jessica Jones – Jessica Jones


Arya Stark – Game of Thrones


Kimmy Schmidt – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt


Rebecca Bunch – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend


Tasha ‘Taystee’ Jefferson – Orange is the New Black


Daria Morgendorffer – Daria


Buffy Summers – Buffy the Vampire Slayer