Conclusion

This final chapter summarises the key findings of this research and offers concluding reflections on the significance of female authorship and women-centred US television since the 2010s. Throughout the book, it has been demonstrated that female authorship functions as both a narrative and industrial marker of distinction and as a cultural and political tool for negotiating feminist discourses within a postfeminist and neoliberal media landscape. The nine case studies have illustrated the ways in which women-authored productions challenge dominant representational paradigms while simultaneously being shaped by them, revealing the tensions between creative agency, institutional constraints, and audience expectations. Chapter 7 concludes by considering the evolving landscape of female television authorship in the 2020s, noting both continuities and departures from previous trends. It also identifies areas that warrant further critical attention, particularly the construction of female authorship beyond the US context and within under-explored genres such as non-fiction and reality-based television. These emerging spaces hold potential for expanding understandings of gendered authorship, television production, and feminist cultural politics on a global scale.