I freely admit to being a Law and Order: SVU addict. I watch it as much as I can--despite the generally dark subject matter, it's something that I use as a break from getting my work done. After taking a seminar on feminism this semester, I have yet another reason to enjoy the show: its great female roles, which I now appreciate even more than in the past. Especially in our current political climate, I feel it is incredibly important to recognize and celebrate shows like SVU that spotlight strong "nasty" women. (I will admit that I haven't yet watched the entire series, so I can only speak about the women in it that I've seen in what I've watched so far!)

Most recently, I've become slightly obsessed with Casey Novak, portrayed by Diane Neal. She was the Assistant District Attorney on SVU from 2003-2008 and 2011-2012, which means that for those seasons, she was the main prosecutor working with the Special Victims Unit detectives. She's incredibly intelligent and driven, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. She works intensely to make sure that the law is upheld, even if sometimes her personal opinion might be that there is more gray area. That is, in fact, something she struggles with: the sex crimes division of the police department involves working with living victims rather than dead ones, and live people always bring more complications for her that challenge her beliefs. However, she is very much a fighter for true justice and takes a hands-on approach at times, even though it's not a necessary part of her job; she pursues what becomes almost a vendetta (at least from the view of several others) against a biased judge in order to prove that the judge's prejudices are obscuring the neutrality his job obligates him to have. Finally, she, like some of her colleagues, does not subscribe to certain stereotypical gender norms. She gets extremely angry, and with good reason, when that same biased judge instructs her to "dress appropriately" for court and wear a skirt. She is also very athletic: one scene shows her practicing in a batting cage, and she sometimes rides her bicycle to work. All of this shows Casey as a great example of a strong female character, and a good role model.

Alexandra "Alex" Cabot, another Assistant District Attorney on SVU, is another good female role model. Played by Stephanie March, she appears on the show from 2000-2003, 2005, and 2009-2012. Similarly to Casey, she takes a very strict view of morality in doing her job, and is also clearly intelligent because she is a Harvard Law graduate as well. Alex is very determined to do her job and do it well; even when she receives death threats, she insists that she will be fine and works until there really is an attempt to take her life, at which point she has to go into hiding in the Witness Protection Program. When she eventually returns to her position working with the SVU detectives, she works on one case involving an illegal immigrant from the DRC, and though she wins the case and manages to help the survivor, she is so deeply affected by what she learns about the treatment of women in the DRC that she takes a leave of absence to go work on sex crimes and human rights cases internationally, in places like the DRC. Alex's strong convictions to help other women demonstrate how she can be a good figure to look up to.

Detective Amanda Rollins, played by Kelli Giddish, is relatively a more recent addition to the Special Victims Unit staff, and has appeared on the show from 2011 to the present. She originally worked for the Atlanta Police Department before transferring to New York, and has had to get through being raped on the job, a gambling addiction, and a lot of family drama. She has big obstacles, some within herself and some external, that have at times dragged her down, but she still manages to show how passionate she is about getting justice for the people involved in the cases she works despite her personal issues that are sometimes in her way, and she works hard to help them. She also often schools the male detectives on feminism. Though they all have good intentions and are good people, Amanda is quick to rebuke them when they make comments that are misinformed. She eventually has a daughter, and though motherhood is a choice not necessarily an indicator of strong women, Amanda has her child knowing that she will be a single mother, raising Jesse alone, and I believe this is a major demonstration of her fortitude because she finds the determination within herself to work for something she wants, being a mom, while also continuing to work in a high-stress job.

Finally, there is Lieutenant Olivia Benson, played by Mariska Hargitay, who is arguably the heart of SVU. She has appeared on the show for all eighteen seasons that is has aired, from 1999 through the present, and started as a detective, then moved up to sergeant and eventually was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. She, like Casey, does not always conform to gender norms for women; she often has short haircuts and has had difficulty in almost every serious romantic relationship that has been shown on SVU. She never backs down when she is sure about something, even while her male colleagues are sometimes disbelieving of her ideas. Olivia, like all her colleagues, is intent on getting justice for rape and abuse survivors and is especially impassioned about cases involving children. A storyline throughout the series is her desire to be a mother, and having to deal with that not working out over and over again. She eventually adopts a baby boy who is involved in a case she works, and, like Amanda, makes the conscious choice to be a single mother. In addition, by the more recent seasons, she has started seeing a therapist; I think a significant indicator of strength is knowing when to get help.

What I think is most important about all the major women of Law and Order: SVU is that not one of them is perfect. They all have admirable qualities that have allowed me to look up to them, but they are also very real people; they grapple with both internal and external obstacles depicted on the show, and even when they do not make the best choices, the complications are apparent and the actual moral questions cause viewers to sympathize.