Girls on television

The Museum of Radio and Television celebrates television made by women.

Published December 5, 2005 2:32PM (EST)

A reminder that this is the week the Museum of Television & Radio is launching "She Made It," a program dedicated to "bringing the significant contributions of women in television and radio to the forefront."

It's a terrific idea. As museum chairman Frank Bennack points out in his letter about "She Made It," "entire genres of programming were created by women, and programming divisions run by them."

The list of the first 50 honorees (more will be added over the next three years) is pretty varied. It includes radio actress Fanny Brice; Bertha Brainard, the first head of programming for NBC radio in the late 1920s; radio journalist Dorothy Thompson; director Ida Lupino; soap opera goddesses Irna Phillips and Agnes Nixon; "That Girl" Marlo Thomas; choreographer, director, producer and "Fame" actress Debbie Allen; PBS and NPR correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault; former Nickelodeon executive and Oxygen founder Geraldine Laybourne; "Sex and the City" bigwig Sarah Jessica Parker; and, naturally, Oprah.

The celebration of "She Made It" began last Thursday and continues through this week.


By Rebecca Traister

Rebecca Traister writes for Salon. She is the author of "Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women" (Free Press). Follow @rtraister on Twitter.

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