The Impossible Women on TV

by: Anne Sweet , March 26, 2026

For my doctoral research in feminist media studies, I examined the late 1990s sociocultural commercial media phenomenon ‘Girl Power’ and, more specifically, television’s ‘Girl Power heroes,’ such as Xena: Warrior Princess (syndicated, 1995-2001). Thus, I was very keen to crack open Kristen Hoerl’s recent book, The Impossible Woman and read her analysis of ‘strong female leads’ in contemporary American television series, to see how representations of women onscreen have evolved since then.

At first glance, I thought perhaps the title The Impossible Woman might mean that television had begun featuring more female characters who are rebellious and break the mould—perhaps in the style of the past’s ‘unruly woman,’ as defined by Kathleen Rowe as a ‘topos of female outrageousness and transgression’, who could render political disobedience conceivable through her onscreen presence that represented disruption, non-conformity and even ‘a source of danger for threatening the conceptual categories which organise our lives’ (Rowe 1997: 75-76). I felt delight at the possibility that TV could offer a site for new forms of feminist resistance. However, upon reading the very first pages of The Impossible Woman, I came to understand that, unfortunately, the opposite is true.

In fact, it was disheartening to learn that, according to Hoerl’s study, many of the recent depictions of ‘feminist progress’ on the small screen are actually quite superficial and not truly feminist at all (Hoerl 2025: 4). Beginning with Parks and Recreation (NBC, 2009-2015), a series that debuted during the rise of ‘peak television’ and increasingly serialised narratives, Hoerl demonstrates that contemporary televised serial narratives containing ‘strong female leads’ may even reinforce patriarchal and neoliberal discourses that discourage feminism and collective social movements as drivers of societal transformation. Moreover, the institutional and economic stakes involved in the production of televised content depicting what I might term as ‘faux feminism’ (or at least a rather light version of it) would appear to have changed very little since Mary Tyler Moore (CBS, 1970-1977) and Wonder Woman (ABC/CBS, 1975-1979) ‘empowered’ the small screen during feminism’s second wave. We may even be witnessing some form of regression, or at the very least, a reframing of multiple portrayals of the feminist struggle and female achievement as completely futile and without any hope of success. Hoerl uses the term ‘sexist realism’ throughout her work to describe how recent scripted TV programs depict a neoliberal, fatalistic ‘reality’ in which sexism is constant, omnipresent, and enforced by patriarchal forces that are unbearably oppressive—no matter how hard a woman might try.[1]

In fact, the term ‘impossible woman’ has dire, fatalistic connotations. Hoerl explains that many contemporary lead female characters are ‘impossible’ for two very distinct reasons. First, they are often depicted as being ‘impossibly’ exceptionally gifted and attractive, so much so that they may even possess what she terms as ‘trailblazer beauty’ (Hoerl 2025: 4). The pleasure that viewers find in seeing female characters who are intelligent, capable, and resilient may allow for readings of ‘feminist’ or ‘empowered’ content. Yet, Hoerl underscores that there is no clear social agenda behind their creation. If she categorises characters in her study as ‘strong female leads,’ it is precisely because that term corresponds to the name of one of Netflix’s ‘taste communities,’ or groups of consumers that the platform targets based on algorithmic data. The author notes that this label ‘is at once a reference to audience preferences and a representational strategy’ (Hoerl 2025: 3). Ambiguous in meaning, and heterogeneous in genre, its goal is to provide content that attracts cisgender, white, female, well-to-do media consumers by featuring neoliberal feminist discourses of ‘striving,’ ‘empowerment,’ and ‘achievement,’ as streaming consumers tend to ‘skew female’ (Hoerl 2025: 13).

The second reason for which the book is entitled The Impossible Woman is because, even though ‘strong female leads’ are impossibly ‘extraordinary,’ their lives are made ‘impossible’ by patriarchy in ways that illustrate that ‘feminism is doomed’ (Hoerl 2025: 12). And so, Hoerl affirms that ‘[t]elevision cannot seem to imagine a world in which modest feminist outcomes are possible, even in its wildest fantasies’ (Hoerl 2025: 4). Thus, the feminist potential of programs featuring ‘strong female leads’ is both ‘restrained and restraining’ (Hoerl 2025: 5).

As an associate professor in rhetoric and public culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Hoerl uses ‘rhetorical criticism’ as her primary methodology, as it is ‘conventionally concerned with how public texts function for audiences within particular historical contexts’ (Hoerl 2025: 19). More precisely, she emphasises that the rhetorical analysis of popular culture is important because it can shape people’s beliefs and identities. Furthermore, its discourses have inscribed themselves in the political and cultural rhetoric surrounding citizenship and belonging (Hoerl 2025: 20). She also acknowledges the influence of Bonne J. Dow’s book, Prime-Time Feminism (1996) on her work, as well as that of ‘cultural studies’ and its ‘efforts to take popular culture seriously as a site of sociopolitical struggle’ (Hoerl 2025: 20). However, she does not examine showrunners’ or media critics’ discourses, or ‘paratexts that guide or shape readers’ experiences,’ nor does she do any reception study (Hoerl 2025: 21). Her methodology is thus, purely textual, and based on her analyses alone.

In her introduction, Hoerl does not give a clear and explicit definition of what she might consider to be ‘true feminism,’ contemporary or actual feminism as a framework, nor how she would clearly define ‘good,’ ‘positive, or ‘strong’ female characters, which might have been helpful to better position her subjects However, she does make a solid case that televised representations of ‘strong women’ rarely represent any sort of true political or social agenda and often reinforce patriarchy by undermining feminism. More specifically, she successfully demonstrates that in the rare instances where ‘strong female leads’ actually triumph, it is often because they align themselves with the patriarchy or betray others in their communities.

This might even represent a step backwards from female characters of the ‘Girl Power’ era, when lead female characters would often work for and with a ‘feminist community’ (that included men) to one-up patriarchal forces, even if they might eventually be ‘punished’ for their agency or meet bad ends as ‘sacrificial heroines’ (see, for example, Crosby 2004; Ross 2004; Sweet 20 2). The trend of strong female characters ultimately ‘falling on their swords’—getting killed off, ‘punished,’ not being allowed to achieve agency or live happily ever after—continues to this day, and is something that Hoerl laments in various sections of her book. Furthermore, it is important to note that, soon after the publication of Hoerl’s book, millions of people around the world simultaneously watched the finale of Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016-2026), thus witnessing the self-sacrifice of Eleven, whom Hoerl describes as an example of an ‘impossible woman.’ Streaming platforms allow American hegemonic neoliberal ‘feminist’ messages to be broadcast around the world. Therefore, the importance of such content and its potential impact on viewers, especially young viewers, should not be underestimated.

Of course, not all programs follow these patterns. Hoerl cites Shonda Rhimes as an example of a rare female producer of colour who has the power to depict alternative representations. However, the author also feels that the ‘color-blind and postracial logics of Rhime’s programs’ can be critiqued because they ‘avoid deep engagement with ongoing forms of racial injustice’ (Hoerl 2025: 8). Moreover, Rhimes’ series Bridgerton (Netflix, 2020-), which is based on the regency romance genre, falls into a category of programming that Hoerl finds problematic She writes, ‘Period dramas tell us that postfeminist assumptions are timeless because activism on behalf of women’s inclusion into male-dominated institutions was never actually needed at all’ (Hoerl 2025: 6). This representation is thus inadvertently ironic and absurd, as the genre originated with works by 19th-century authors like Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, who were interested in denouncing the conditions of women through their writings. Instead, Netflix has given the public a historical fantasy where 19th-century England is filled with wealthy people of colour and corset-wearing women who are empowered through heterosexual romance with rich men.

While Hoerl uses examples from various TV shows throughout, the book’s core is organised into five chapters. They each highlight specific case studies of extraordinary ‘impossible women’ facing ‘sexist realism’ and the contingent difficulties of thriving and having power and control against impossible odds. Moreover, she affirms that ‘sexist realism involves a deferral of agency insofar as sexism is construed as inescapable reality’ (Hoerl 2025: 43). For example, in Chapter 1, ‘Impossibly Resilient,’ Hoerl analyses ‘neoliberal sexism’ in Parks and Recreation (NBC, 2009-2016), whose lead character, Leslie Knope, ‘foregrounds the troubling implications of discourses that suggest sexism is an inevitability in electoral politics’ (Hoerl 2025: 23). Chapter 2, ‘Improbably Cheerful’, examines the series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix 2015-2019), which ‘offers a jarring satire of resilience narratives by illustrating how mainstream discourse celebrates overcoming sexual abuse and other forms of virulent misogyny so long as they present an overarching positive attitude’ (Hoerl 2025: 47). And Hoerl maintains throughout the book that individual achievement, ‘resilience’ and ‘go-getter’ attitudes are depicted as the keys to feminist empowerment in ‘strong female lead’ series, which reinforces neoliberal and patriarchal individualist ideologies, as they completely undermine the need for and the importance of collective action.

This emphasis on individual achievement is especially visible in the series studied in Chapter 3, ‘Exquisitely Lonely’, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video, 2017-2023) and The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix, 2020), both of which feature young attractive lead characters whom Hoerl contends illustrate ‘television’s fascination with trailblazer beauty’ (Hoerl 2025: 24). She finds shows featuring ‘trailblazer beauties’ to be problematic because they ‘point to a crisis of white feminist struggle in which women’s striving for individual achievement isolates them from friends and family’ and they depend ‘on structural racism to prop them up’ (Hoerl 2025: 24). Hoerl contends that the series are completely centred on issues of ‘white feminism’, and white beauty standards, in the pre-feminist era, to the obfuscation of racial or intersectional concerns, and even represent of a form of ‘commodity feminism’ in which beauty is emphasised as choice or personal freedom. As the lead characters succeed and achieve through their individual giftedness and conformity to traditional beauty standards, the series depicts a sort of ‘comforting’ reality for viewers, in which social movements are not needed, nor perhaps ever needed, to get (white) women ahead.

The last two chapters more particularly buttress and emphasise the position that representations of ‘whiteness’ and the lack of positive, ‘visible’ representations of people of colour reinforce the idea that ‘neoliberalism remains a form of racial capitalism’ (Hoerl 2025: 139). In Chapter 4, ‘Insanely Gifted,’ Hoerl studies the ‘strong female lead’ and mystical leader, Queen Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-2019). She maintains that Daenerys’ quest for power and agency led to her ‘tragic demise,’ as her ‘white feminism prevents her from recognising she cannot gain support from the world’s most powerful white men and pursue liberation for the world’s most oppressed at the same time’ (Hoerl 2025: 24). Hoer emphasises Hollywood’s investments in Western imperialism and white supremacy’ in asserting that ‘What marked Dany for death was her radical decolonial agenda, not her white saviour complex’ (Hoerl 2025: 116). Throughout The Impossible Woman, Hoerl laments that success for women is often seen as incompatible with helping others, as in the case of Daenys. In doing so, she links contemporary televised feminist discourses to a version of neoliberal popular feminism that pushes forward the white middle-and-upper-class agenda of ‘achievement,’ ‘resilience,’ and ‘striving,’ leaving invisible questions of intersectionality, classism and racism.

The last chapter, Chapter 5, ‘Gangster Girlboss,’ addresses a rare series featuring a non-white lead female character, Queen of the South (USA, 2016-2021), which encourages ‘viewers to fantasize about the possibilities of narcoempowerment’ by featuring a ‘gore capitalist reality’ that illustrates the alignment of neoliberal economics with the brutality and violence of organised crime as a Mexican woman rises to head a drug cartel (Hoerl: 138-139; see also Valencia 2018). Hoerl bases this concept on Sayak Valencia’s study on ‘gore capitalism,’ or ‘organised crime’s turn to violence to meet the demands of global capitalism’ (Hoerl: 24; see also Valencia 2018). Hoerl does not spend much time discussing the telenovela that inspired it, La Reina del Sur (Telemundo, 2011-2023), but rather analyses the conception of a female Mexican drug dealer in the context of an American series. She notes that Queen of the South departs from the La Reina del Sur in many important ways, notably in featuring two women pitted against each other, and in so doing resembles another ‘gore economy’ series, Killing Eve (BBC America, 2018-2022). Moreover, Queen of the South closely aligns itself with American ‘prestige TV’ and its emphasis on ‘anti-heroes’, and even Charlie’s Angels (ABC, 1976-1981) in the way that the lead character performs femininity to gain the upper hand over those who might underestimate her (Hoerl 2025: 118-124).

Hoerl sees some positive aspects to this series, which distinguishes itself from many others by depicting the conditions of women living on the US-Mexico border. She notably appreciates that it ‘suggests that neoliberalism multiculturalism’s status as common sense has diminished,’ even if she does not find it ‘a cause for celebration’ (Hoerl 2025: 139). However, she is critical of the fact that the lead character Teresa does horrible things to others in order to have resources and means, and that the series’ success ‘suggests that a capitalist logic that openly embraces the racialized and gendered dimensions of gore may be far more resonant to viewers than one that envisions multi-cultured inclusions as a locus of freedom and opportunity’ (Hoerl 2026: 139). Moreover, Hoerl laments that when a woman of colour is chosen as a main character, like Teresa in this series, she is often a woman who has a lighter skin tone (Hoerl 2025: 141).

Throughout The Impossible Woman, Hoerl reiterates and reaffirms that ‘strong female leads’ are more often than not cisgender, white characters, who are especially thin and good-looking, interested in men and available to the male gaze, reflecting not only a sexist but also a racist reality. She criticises contemporary television’s lack of intersectional focus and depth in looking at issues of feminism and racism, and the way it focuses more on issues of ‘white feminism,’ such as meaningful careers, achievement, and ‘having it all,’ than on caregiving, race discrimination or poverty, which is surely linked to attempting to please Netflix’s target consumers. This prioritising of targeting of white, well-to-do female viewers has changed little from the days of 1970s network television, when media executives became interested in the purchasing power of professional, educated women who had learned about feminism at university.

Hoerl demonstrates that no matter how hard a ‘strong female lead’ ‘strives’ to succeed, it is often impossible to achieve her goals due to ‘sexist realism.’ Moreover, she affirms that ‘structures of patriarchy are maintained in the name of feminist striving for success and achievement’ (Hoerl 2025: 10). In fact, Hoerl uses the word ‘striving’ throughout to highlight the logical fallacy underpinning neoliberal social policies and meritocratic ideologies that maintain those individual efforts––rather than collective ones––are the path to social progress, suggesting that the individual alone can overcome. Therein lies, she argues, a fatal flaw in the feminist potential of many contemporary scripted programs. She writes, ‘[d]eclining living standards, climate change, the crisis of care labor, growing racial inequities, anti-Black violence, and other conditions reveal that entrepreneurialism and hard work are not solutions to the problems that plague us’ (Hoerl 2025: 143).

Hoerl concludes her book by discussing the serious issues concerning women’s rights in the United States under Republican governance. In addition, she emphasises that there is a significant rise in ‘popular misogyny’ that opposes and demeans both actual political feminism, as well as ‘popular feminism’ (the TV version of which, one realises after reading this book, may actually be detrimental to the feminist cause). I found Hoerl’s reflections on the positioning of television’s ‘feminist’ content in a society that values the ‘manosphere,’ and in a culture that values ‘striving’ over collective action, to be interesting and valuable contributions to contemporary scholarship. Nevertheless, one could perhaps regret the lack of any sort of reception study or examination of the paratexts to see if the viewing public is truly duped by the algorithms.

Hoerl ends her work, not by offering a concrete example of the sort of precise feminist television show she might like to see, but with a request, a plea even, that there be more inclusive and intersectional content and that the public should insist upon it. However, streaming platforms like Netflix have a commercial imperative to generate revenue from subscribers, and network television needs to attract viewers who will please advertisers with their purchasing power. Therefore, inciting media producers to create deeply intersectional, inclusive content that may promote actual social change would currently seem as impossible to achieve as success is for the ‘impossible woman’—the one who finds her exceptionally perfect self perpetually and eternally trapped in a sexist reality that will never let her win.

Notes

[1] Hoerl acknowledges that in developing this concept, she was inspired by Mark Fisher’s work on ‘capitalist realism’—or the idea that no alternative to capitalism could be viable or even possible.