It’s on TV that female ambition has been allowed to thrive, with characters that are doctors like Christina Yang (Gray’s Anatomy), lawyers like Patty Hewes (Damages) and Diane Lockhart (The Good Fight), high-powered consultants like Olivia Pope (Scandal), or TV producers like Quinn King and Rachel Goldberg (UnREAL). The extended timeframe of television allows these characters to become three-dimensional beings, with their ambition explored in its many thorny angles. Most of the pop culture images of successful women we see show us their ambition as the source of their failings elsewhere.
