It used to be that you had to make female TV characters perfect so no one would be offended by your 'portrayal' of women. Even when I started out on 'The Office' eight years ago we could write our male characters funny and flawed but not the women. And now thankfully it's completely different.
I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.