Overrated Ally McBeal made her debut in 1997 and for the next five years was the most analyzed female character on television. A graduate of Harvard Law School working at a high-powered Boston law firm, McBeal seemed to embody modern feminism. With a career of her own and a six-figure salary to go with it, here was a role model young women could relate to. But McBeal turned out to be a collection of neuroses, which made for entertaining TV but did nothing to advance the feminist cause.

McBeal’s quest to find a soul mate defined who she was and sent soaring the collective anxiety of female viewers who by age 30 had failed to marry and bear children. When the actress playing McBeal, Calista Flockhart, grew so alarmingly thin that she was routinely referred to as waif-like, the insecurity of the fictional character spilled over into real life.

Unlike the traditional housewives of the fifties played by Barbara Billingsley (Beaver Cleaver’s mother) and Donna Reed, who settled into their lives with cheery resignation, McBeal was never happy with herself, or with anybody else for that matter. Her poutiness and childlike cuteness were enough to send any self-respecting feminist over the edge. The show was canceled in 2002, the victim of poor ratings, signaling the end of the narcissistic self-absorption that drove the central character.

Underrated There are many throughout history, but Alice Paul is at the top of my list. She was responsible for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the vote. There was nothing in her background as a young Quaker to suggest that she would become a radical feminist. She had a degree from Swarthmore and an advanced degree from the University of Pennsylvania when she went to London in 1907 to study social work. There she came upon Emmeline Pankhurst, who with her two daughters was leading the British suffrage movement. The experience transformed Paul, and when she returned to the States in 1910, she found it dismaying that the American suffrage movement was so complacent compared with its more radical counterpart across the ocean. Impatient and with a flair for public relations, Paul determined that the only way to make progress—and get attention—was to confront the political party in power.

When Woodrow Wilson arrived at Washington’s Union Station for his inauguration, in 1913, he wondered where all the crowds were. He was told, “They’re over on the avenue looking at the ladies.” That was Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, where Paul had organized a parade of more than 5,000 women—women in their academic gowns and their nurses’ uniforms, as well as factory workers. Leading the parade was a woman described in the press as “the most beautiful suffragist ever,” astride a white horse and wearing white robes: the warrior princess. The New York Times praised the event,