Other than just providing entertainment, TV shows also give us strong characters that we can't help but admire. These five ladies work hard and make us hope we are successful as them in our own careers.
1. Clair Huxtable, "The Cosby Show"
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Clair Huxtable is a mom, lawyer and a pretty stylish dresser.
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Clair Huxtable is a mom to five and a lawyer. She becomes partner at her firm, and this fabulous character might never have been. Originally, Huxtable was supposed to be a housewife. Since this show takes place in the '80s, this means Clair Huxtable saw her goals through at a time of racial prejudice.
2. Peggy Olson, "Mad Men"
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She may not have known how to do her job as an assistant first, but she ended up at the top of the ad agency.
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Peggy Olson starts off as Don Draper's secretary, and it was because she acted so different from the other women in an observation room that her career started as a copywriter for the advertising firm. The men began to value her intelligence and they needed her woman's perspective, and she used this to move up in the office through her hard work. She was able to leave SCDP on her own terms and with a bump in her salary (more than $100,000 today).
3. Betty Suarez, "Ugly Betty"
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Betty Suarez started as an insecure, unstylish secretary and had a complete makeover.
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She traveled from Queens to Manhattan in her job as an assistant for Daniel Meade. She had many things she had to overcome to become a prominent member of Mode, a fashion magazine. She was a minority and not skinny, and there was also her questionable fashion sense. But she was smart and a good writer, and she sticks with the job and even manages to impress the hard-to-please Wilhelmina Slater.
4. Leslie Knope, "Parks and Recreation"
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Leslie Knope is as passionate about Pawnee as she is about waffles.
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Knope may hate libraries, but she is set on making a difference in Pawnee. She works so hard for the parks department that she essentially does the work of about three people. And this upcoming season will bring on as a city council member, where she'll be able to make changes on a larger scale, but this won't be the last stop for the ambitious blonde.
5. Fanny Flowers, "Bunheads"
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She may not be making a living through her career, but it doesn't make her any less passionate.
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Fanny Flowers was a dancer, but she quit when she became pregnant. She ends up teaching, and soon her daughter-in-law discovers that Flowers doesn't make a real living from her lessons and is struggling financially. Most of the students are on scholarship. It's much more important for her to teach dance than to charge them for her time. If that doesn't show how dedicated she is to her craft, there's also the scene where she encourages her student, Boo, to change looks to re-audition for a prestigious ballet school.
6. Rachel Green, "Friends"
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Rachel Green went from never having a job to working with the biggest names in fashion.
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The opening scene of "Friends" shows a spoiled girl who ran out on her wedding, and it is completely different Rachel Green by the end. Never having had a job, she starts at the coffee shop that the group frequents, but she ends up working in fashion. First, it was Bloomingdales as an assistant buyer. Later, she worked for Ralph Lauren, interviewed for Gucci and accepts (then declines) a job with Louis Vuitton.
