It's a Good Year to Be a Woman at the Golden Globes

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The first black female director nominee, a handful of TV nominations.

It’s not easy being a woman in Hollywood. But today — or at least, this round of award show nominations — has been kind to women. Good on you, Golden Globes. Let us count the ways...


NEWS: Check out the complete list of Golden Globe nominations

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Ava DuVernay
became only the fifth woman ever to be nominated for Best Director at the Globes for her work on Selma. The only woman to have ever actually won Best Director is Barbra Streisand, for Yentl in 1983.

Ava is also the first black woman to ever be nominated in the category. She spoke to ET about her nomination on Thursday.

Looking ahead, only four women have ever been nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards and only one has ever won — Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2009. Maybe Ava will become the fifth nominee there too. Maybe she’ll become the second winner.


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Another huge accomplishment: In the category for Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy every show nominated except one has a female showrunner. Four out of five ain’t bad. Four out of five is really, really good. The nominees are:

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Lena Dunham
and Jenni Konner for Girls. This is the third time the show has been nominated in as many years, with a win in 2013. Lena said, “We at Girls are honored to share a category with such formally daring, forward-thinking shows.”

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Jennie Snyder Urman
for Jane the Virgin (which is actually adapted from a Venezuelan telenovela created by another woman, Perla Farías). Gina Rodgriguez also managed to score a Best Actress in a TV Series, Comedy or Musical nomination.

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Jenji Kohan
for Orange Is the New Black. This is the first year that the show itself has been nominated — last year only Taylor Schilling was nominated for Best Actress in a Drama. (Looks like the switch to comedy helped.)

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Jill Soloway
for Transparent. The first nomination for the first season — and an important nomination at that. Jeffrey Tambor was also nominated in the Best Actor category for his work on the show.

(The fifth nomination is Silicon Valley.)


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Some other notable nominations: Two of the five shows in the Best TV Series, Drama were co-created by women (The Affair's Sarah Treem with Hagai Levi and The Good Wife's Michelle King and husband Robert).

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The “Best Original Song, Motion Picture” category, which has been dominated by the likes of U2, Coldplay and other male artists in past years, is all female, aside from a nomination to John Legend and Common for their song "Glory" from Selma.

The other four are for first time nominees Lana Del Rey (“Big Eyes” in Big Eyes), Lorde (“Yellow Flicker Beat” in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1), and Patti Smith (“Mercy Is” in Noah, with Lenny Kaye), and second-time nominee Sia (“Opportunity” in Annie).

Watch to find out more about everyone nominated for a Golden Globe: