Back during the early days of TV sitcoms, audiences got familiar with a particular depiction of women. They often wore dresses, woke each morning with a full face of make-up, and stayed home to care for their children while their husband pursued a career. But these fictional portrayals of the modern woman were just that: fiction. As women continued to fight for their place in the entertainment industry, the concept of the ideal woman began to change. Women were carving out a place for themselves in the male-dominated writing rooms and would eventually have the opportunity to write characters that felt like someone they could identify with. One of the very first of these characters was Mary Richards, the protagonist of The Mary Tyler Moore show.