I think the great thing about the position that I’m in now, in terms of women in this industry, is if you’re qualified, you’re able. We’re finally getting to that place. Before, it was such a difficult thing because there weren’t women that were qualified yet because we hadn’t had opportunities. How are you going to be qualified for a position if you have no experience? Now, enough years have gone by where women have been in positions from the bottom to the top that we’re qualified to be at the table.

"This is not unique to Fox News. Women everywhere are used to being dismissed, ignored or attacked when raising complaints about men in authority positions," Kelly said. "They stay silent so often out of fear — fear of ending their careers, fear of lawyers, yes, and often fear of public shaming." Kelly said it gives her "no pleasure" to make these claims against her former employer, "but this must stop."

While it is good to see portrayals of women who are not physically helpless, this is usually the only trait SFCs can boast. Even then, their strength is personified through violence and physical power, two typically masculine characteristics. Besides this, they usually contribute little to the plot because they are written as one-note figures with no depth what so ever.

Rhimes is the third black woman to join the ranks of honorees; Oprah Winfrey was the first to be inducted in 1993, followed by actress and singer Diahann Carroll, who was inducted in 2011.

"It is true that when the casualty list starts to be devised, the females are more likely to be on it," Thompson told The Washington Post. "That's because you've already got built into the equation a gender preference for male characters" carried over from decades of scripted television that revolved around men. In most of these shows, he said, the "females characters have already been subordinated."

In this version of space, there's no glass ceiling. "In Star Trek's utopian future, many of the gender issues have been rectified," says Martin-Green. "It's common to see a woman of color in power."