Most groundbreaking show about four women: 'Sex and the City' or 'The Golden Girls'? | The Tylt

"SATC" is regarded as one of HBO's flagship shows. The series redefined TV as we know it. And as Manrepeller's Amelia Diamond noted, "Sex and the City" revolutionized how we see single women, and how single women see themselves. She wrote:

"[The show] turned the spinster stereotype on its head because no one had presented it as anything but miserable. SATC made it badass to be single. It made single women eligible bachelors." 

Glamour's Natasha Walter argued it wasn't the sex that makes "SATC" groundbreaking—it's the portrayal of the four women's love and loyalty to one another.

What made Sex and the City worm its way into so many women's hearts, I think, is the way that it foregrounds female friendship. That sounds counter-intuitive, given that it is meant to be about the hunt for a good man, but this show is intensely idealistic about the way that women can get unconditional love from one another.

But when you consider "The Golden Girls" came out in the mid-80s, it's pretty revolutionary.

Fans say "The Golden Girls" aged amazingly well for a 30-year-old show, while "SATC" is often critiqued for being label-obsessed and superficial. "GG" fans say the ladies of Miami covered so much of this territory first.

The Huffington Post's Yagana Shah wrote that "The Golden Girls" is actually far more subversive than "SATC," despite the latter's wild sex scenes and frequent nudity. "GG" spoke frankly about older women's desires and let gray-haired actresses be as raunchy as their young male counterparts.