- 6/17/2025
We're taking a closer look at the TV shows centered on women in their 20s and 30s over the years and why these series became so defining for their generation. Whether they reflected the lives women were actually living, the ones they dreamed of, or just finally voiced the conversations they’d been waiting to hear, from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Sex and the City", "Girls" to "The Sex Lives of College Girls".
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00:00You're definitely like a Carrie with like some Samantha Aspects and Charlotte hair.
00:05That's like a really good combination.
00:07Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:08And today we're taking a closer look at the TV shows centered on women in their 20s and 30s
00:13over the years and why these series became so defining for their generation.
00:17Whether they reflected the lives women were actually living,
00:19the ones they dreamed of, or just finally voiced the conversations they'd been waiting to hear.
00:24I couldn't help but wonder, what do they see in us?
00:27Is it any wonder that when two Sex and the City fans meet,
00:33one of their first questions is, are you a Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, or Samantha?
00:37That's how deeply the show resonated with audiences in the late 90s and early 2000s.
00:41The fab foursome's lives felt tied to the cultural and social shifts happening for women at the time.
00:46This is the first time in the history of Manhattan that women have had as much money and power as men,
00:50plus the equal luxury of treating men like sex objects.
00:54With its roots in third-wave feminism, the series brought once-taboo topics into living rooms,
00:59sexual agency, delaying marriage for careers,
01:01and exploring female desire in ways that would have made older shows clutch their pearls.
01:06It doesn't make any sense.
01:07I barely know him.
01:08We've only been on two dates.
01:10And yet you had sex with him.
01:11Can everyone please let Carrie talk about the sex?
01:15The mind-blowing sex.
01:16But that boldness was exactly what women craved,
01:19and one way they showed it was a surge in sales of a certain rabbit companion.
01:24The show mirrored a growing openness in society
01:26and pushed back on outdated expectations around how women were supposed to live.
01:30Because with the rabbit, it's like every time, boom.
01:34And one time, I came for like five minutes.
01:37Charlotte, honey, it's not illegal.
01:39It wasn't the first show about single successful women,
01:42but it was the one that made it clear womanhood wasn't just about diamond rings.
01:46With New York as the fifth main character,
01:48Sex and the City invited viewers to join the inner circle,
01:51navigating love, heartbreak, and career moves as if they were the honorary sixth friend.
01:56Maybe we could be each other's soulmates.
02:00And then we could let men be just these great, nice guys to have fun with.
02:08Well, that sounds like the plan.
02:11In many ways, the show was groundbreaking,
02:13talking frankly about pleasure, fertility, motherhood, illness, grief, and more.
02:18It made female friendship a central force,
02:20suggesting that fulfillment could come from personal growth and connection
02:23rather than a wedding aisle ending.
02:25Go back to your people. We'll talk about this later.
02:28You are my people, and we'll talk about it now.
02:31Now start at the beginning.
02:33Still, for all its forward thinking,
02:35the series had some major issues,
02:37from Samantha's feud with her trans sex worker neighbors,
02:40to Carrie's bi erasure and insensitive portrayals of queerness and race.
02:44It could be shockingly clumsy,
02:46especially for Gen X women of color or LGBTQIA plus viewers who saw themselves nowhere.
02:51You don't belong in here.
02:53You can never understand what I'm talking about.
02:55This is a black thing.
02:57Now would you please go and leave my brother alone?
03:01That's where Girlfriends came in.
03:02It offered what Sex and the City couldn't.
03:04A richer, more inclusive portrait of black women's lives,
03:07friendship, ambition, joy, love, loss, and hardships.
03:11It's just too bad it was cut so soon.
03:13And if she can get one, I'm getting me one of them bags.
03:16Tony, that's enough.
03:17You don't have Crock-Kelly bag money.
03:18You don't have Birkin bag money.
03:19Hell, honey, you barely have Ralph's grocery bag money.
03:22Millennials.
03:23Girls.
03:24While Lena Dunham made it clear that Girls wasn't meant to be a rehash of Sex and the City,
03:28even she couldn't deny its influence.
03:30I'm definitely a Carrie at heart, but like sometimes, sometimes Samantha kind of comes
03:35out.
03:36And then, I mean, when I'm at school, I definitely try and put on my Miranda hat.
03:39In many ways, it became the millennial response.
03:42Where Sex and the City served up a glossy, aspirational take on single life in Manhattan,
03:46complete with Manolo's and Cosmo's, Girls offered up the messy, unfiltered reality of
03:51being a 20-something in the real world.
03:52I don't want to freak you out, but I think that I may be the voice of my generation.
04:00Or at least a voice of a generation.
04:05This time around, the stories revolved around financial instability, dead-end jobs, awkward
04:10hookups, and a constant feeling of what am I even doing?
04:13This new wave of feminism collided with the rise of social media, giving women a louder,
04:18more public platform.
04:19Conversations about intersectionality, body positivity, and the nuances of consent started
04:24entering the mainstream.
04:25Larger significance is just lost on you.
04:27You just don't even...
04:28What larger significance?
04:31The power imbalance?
04:32And with the lingering impact of the 2008 financial crash, a lot of young women were
04:37navigating a world that felt way less stable than anything Sex and the City ever acknowledged.
04:42Girls didn't pretend otherwise.
04:43It ditched the rose-tinted glasses and dropped its characters into unpaid internships, artistic
04:48ambition with no funding, and relationships that will make you want to delete the apps
04:52like immediately.
04:54It also explored female friendship in a more raw, sometimes painfully honest way, from the
04:59fallouts and fractures to the friendships that didn't always last.
05:02Sometimes I wonder if my social anxiety is holding me back from meeting the people who
05:06would actually be right for me, instead of a bunch of f***ing whiny nothings as friends.
05:11Well, maybe Shosh has a point.
05:13I mean, it's not like the four of us have had any real fun together in the last, what,
05:17two years?
05:18Sure, it got called out, rightfully, for its lack of diversity and focus on a small privileged
05:22demographic, but it still managed to spark conversations about the realities of being
05:26young, directionless, and trying to figure it all out in real time.
05:29I'm just realizing how easy it is to get seduced by, like, the perks and the money and the
05:33free snacks, and then suddenly I wake up in 10 years and I'm not a writer anymore.
05:37I'm a former writer who works in corporate advertising, and that is not my plan.
05:41Like Sex and the City before it, Girls could only take the narrative so far.
05:45It often missed the mark for anyone outside that bubble of white, educated, Brooklyn-dwelling
05:49creatives.
05:50But just as Girls wrapped up, the bold type stepped in, and it felt like a breath of fresh
05:55air.
05:55These characters were still navigating work, relationships, and identity.
05:59But this time, the stories were broader and more inclusive.
06:02It just clicked for me, what is going wrong with your ideas?
06:06You're pitching what you think I want to hear.
06:08Well, you're a new voice, I want to hear it.
06:11Finally, audiences who hadn't seen themselves reflected in shows like Sex and the City and
06:15Girls could tune in and feel represented.
06:17It made space for new perspectives and voices that had been left out of the conversation for
06:22way too long.
06:23I choose to wear the hijab.
06:26It does not oppress me, but liberates me from society's expectations of what a woman should
06:35look like.
06:35Gen Z, the sex lives of college girls.
06:38Of every generation, none has been more open or unapologetically vocal than Gen Z.
06:43I think I finally found my voice.
06:45Oh, love!
06:46Amazing!
06:47Yeah, I feel like I've spent so long trying to sound like all these men I saw on late-night
06:50shows.
06:51Turns out my best muse is a sex-positive brown woman.
06:54Myself?
06:54Unlike millennials, who were shocked by the 2008 financial crash, Gen Z came of age knowing
07:00the world was unpredictable.
07:01If they wanted something, they'd have to fight for it.
07:04And that attitude runs deep in the sex lives of college girls.
07:07This isn't just another campus comedy.
07:09It's a refreshingly honest, funny, and emotionally grounded portrait of young women trying to figure
07:14out who they are one day at a time.
07:15Actually, I already have my eye on someone I'm excited to get to know better.
07:19Yes, now we're talking.
07:20Who is it?
07:21Her name is Whitney.
07:22It's me.
07:23I'm excited to love myself.
07:24Oh, that's beautiful.
07:25I've hated that.
07:26These are digital natives raised on constant connectivity, where no topic is off-limits.
07:31Not sex, not identity, not mental health.
07:34The show leans into all of it with nuance, humor, and heart.
07:37As Renee Rapp, who played Leighton, said,
07:40Their sex lives are not their identities, but it's an important part of who they are
07:44in a way that is accepted.
07:45That is peak Gen Z thinking.
07:47Sex positive, but self-aware.
07:49Coming out seems really scary.
07:53But I think the only way you can be happy is if you're yourself.
08:00The creators did their homework.
08:02They actually sourced real stories and tackled subjects that mattered to this generation.
08:06Consent, racial identity, queerness, hookup culture, privilege, friendship fallouts,
08:11and navigating campus life as a woman in 2020s America.
08:14Wait, has Leighton seen this?
08:16No, she's made it very clear she does not follow me on social media.
08:19Me too.
08:19Same.
08:20And please don't tell her she gets mad at me when I touch her sweaters, let alone her brother.
08:23The result is a show that feels current without trying too hard.
08:27It reflects Gen Z's demand for authenticity, intersectionality,
08:31and characters who aren't just diverse in casting, but in how they think, talk, and grow.
08:35It also never lets its characters be reduced to just one thing.
08:39Yes, they're dating and experimenting and getting into trouble,
08:41but they're also students at a top college.
08:44The series makes space for ambition, academics, and messy personal growth,
08:48not just romantic entanglements.
08:49I love knowing why the stuff in our world is the way it is.
08:52It's such a rush to, like, learn stuff.
08:54I know, right?
08:55I always thought college was just what you had to do before starting your life, but I get it now.
09:00At its core, the sex lives of college girls is about forging your own path.
09:04It's about realizing that your chosen family may understand you better than your actual one,
09:08and that figuring out who you are is messy, non-linear, and deeply personal.
09:13My parents think I'm a neuroscience major, which I'm clearly not.
09:16Also, they think I've washed my sheets.
09:18I told my dad that all of our textbooks come from Net-A-Porter,
09:21and that is why he's getting charges.
09:23My parents think I go to church every weekend.
09:26Gen Z doesn't want to be told who to be, and this show stands proudly behind that.
09:30It's a shame it didn't run longer, but thankfully, Yellow Jackets picked up that baton.
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09:53We don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that without shows like That Girl or The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
09:59none of the series we've discussed so far would exist in quite the same way.
10:02These series didn't just walk so the others could run.
10:05They practically built the road.
10:16Before becoming the iconic Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore was best known as Laura Petri,
10:21the stylish stay-at-home wife on The Dick Van Dyke Show.
10:23But with second-wave feminism gaining momentum, audiences were ready for something more.
10:27Women wanted to see themselves outside of domestic spaces.
10:30Ambitious, single, thriving.
10:33And The Mary Tyler Moore Show delivered.
10:35It broke ground simply by centering on a single woman in her 30s who wasn't desperate to get married.
10:41You work for a news show and you wouldn't say who gave you a story and that's why you're here?
10:45Yes.
10:47In other words, they put you in jail just for doing your job?
10:50Yep, that's right.
10:51Mary was focused on her career in the newsroom,
10:53dealing with workplace sexism and the awkward mess of dating.
10:56She had close female friendships, lived independently, and was clearly fulfilled.
11:01Man or no man.
11:02It was revolutionary.
11:04Not because she was shouting about feminism, but because she was quietly living it.
11:08I just don't think one out of five is enough for you.
11:10You're right.
11:11One out of five isn't enough.
11:14But, um, three out of five?
11:18Behind the scenes, women were running the show too.
11:20Moore, also an executive producer,
11:22made a point of hiring women in the writer's room, casting, and beyond.
11:25This gave us a show that felt real to the women watching it,
11:29because it was built by women who understood them.
11:31It tackled taboo topics for the time.
11:33Contraception, sex, and equal pay.
11:36All wrapped in sharp writing and warm, relatable characters.
11:39Don't forget to take your pill.
11:40I won't.
11:41Sure, it was a product of its era, but it punched above its weight.
11:45It mirrored the changes happening in the real world.
11:47Title IX, Roe v. Wade, and more women entering the workforce.
11:51Mary Richards didn't just represent those shifts.
11:53She was those shifts.
11:55I'm doing as good a job as he did.
11:57Better.
11:58Better.
12:00And I'm being paid less than he was because...
12:03You're a woman.
12:06Well, Mr. Grant, there is no good reason
12:09why two people doing the same job at the same place
12:13shouldn't be making the same...
12:14She had a family.
12:15Later on, the Golden Girls reminded us
12:17that feminism doesn't expire with age,
12:19but it's unlikely they would have been able to do that
12:22without Mary Richards leading the charge.
12:23But it was five years before I knew what made your eyes go back in your head.
12:33Dorothy, did you have...
12:38How could I?
12:39I mean, it always seemed to happen before I was in the room.
12:42Picture it.
12:43Minneapolis, 1970.
12:45Mary threw her hat in the air,
12:46and a generation of women realized
12:48they didn't have to fit into anyone's mold.
12:50Television became about so much more than entertainment.
12:53It had started to reflect real change.
12:56Forget your road up,
12:57who does a lot of pushdowns about herself,
12:58and just look at yourself like a stranger.
13:02Hi, new in town?
13:03Will you be out?
13:04Honey, Roush!
13:05What was the defining womanhood series for you?
13:07Let us know in the comments.
13:08Well, it used to be I felt I could be myself.
13:10Now, I feel I represent women everywhere.
13:13Now, stay up there.
13:24.
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