How are women's roles defined in TV drama?
There was a time when women could only be the Mom or the slut or the child. That's really not true anymore, though there are still some limitations like that. The issue is not whether there are now strong women in television because there are unquestionably. It's not just Buffy, who fought vampires, and it's not just the Jennifer from Alias, the character from Alias who also was physically tough, along with any number of other examples of physically strong women.