18 Iconic Female TV Characters Who Never Needed A Man To Survive

In honor of Women's History Month, we're celebrating 18 of the most iconic independent women featured on your favorite TV shows!

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We are very fortunate to live in an era where there are a plethora of female characters on television to look up to. Since March is Women’s History Month, we hand picked 18 different iconic female characters on television to highlight. These women are the ones you turn to after a long day at work, a girls night in, or a lazy Sunday afternoon binge watching. They are strong and independent while also being empathetic and passionate. Some of them are career orientated, while others have put family first… and some are (gasp!) juggling both, like so many women all over the world! Alright, lets get to it!

The most obvious choice for this collection of strong female characters on TV? Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer! She didn’t ask to be the slayer and carry the burden of fighting off supernatural evil while trying to ace geometry tests in high school, but she did it anyway. I mean, how many times can one high school/college student save the world from pending doom without going completely insane? Too many to count in Buffy’s case. Speaking of pending doom, we also chose Clarke Griffin from The 100 and Beth Greene from The Walking Dead as some of our favorite independent women on television. Why? Because they both know what it’s like to keep a level head in a post-apocalyptic world.

There are some very obvious choices, too. For example: Olivia Benson from Law & Order: SVU, Olivia Pope from Scandal, and Daenerys Taegaryan on Game of Thrones. But, more importantly are the not-so-obvious choices: Fiona Gallagher from Shameless, Phoebe from Friends, Cookie Lyon from Empire and Betty Suarez from Ugly Betty! To find out why we chose these iconic women to highlight, click through our gallery HERE.