Patty Duke , Marlo Thomas , and Mary Tyler Moore
Heights , New York . The show centered on teen girls , showing that their lives , concerns , and hopes are important . Just five months after The Patty Duke Show ended , Marlo Thomas debuted on ABC in That Girl , featuring television ’ s first young , single independent female . She played the role of struggling actress Ann Marie , who moves out of her parents ’ home in Brewster , New York , and tries to make it on her own in her early twenties in New York City . The show ran for nearly five years until it ended on March 19 , 1971 , just six months after another female-focused show , The Mary Tyler Moore Show , appeared on CBS , featuring thirty-year old Mary Richards leaving town after the break-up of a two-year relationship to begin a new life and career in Minneapolis The show followed Mary for seven years , wrapping up on March 19 , 1977 .
Although antiquated by today ’ s standards , each of these shows�driven by an attractive woman with a flip hairstyle , lots of warmth , and endless determination�was groundbreaking for its time . Collectively , they comprise a single narrative of female maturation from high school student , to job seeker , to young professional , showing steps a woman can take to navigate a male-dominated world , achieve independence , and establish an identity and career . In so doing , these shows , which share patterns of goofy sidekicks and madcap capers , fill an important role not only in the evolution of prime-time television but also in the lives of young females , demonstrating that they have agency , abilities , and life choices aside from love and marriage . Considering the shows in this manner constitutes a new way of looking at television characters and their sequential influence on the mindset of a youth audience , dovetailing with what Melissa Ames and Sarah Burcon describe in How Popular Culture Shapes the Stages of a Woman ’ s Life as studying the “ impact that popular culture products marketed toward girls and women have on
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