When looking back at some of the most popular television shows in that past few years, it seems that most of them revolved around an amoral, or morally complex male protagonist; Mad Men, Breaking Bad and the Sopranos are just a few examples of this. That’s not to say that there haven’t been successful shows with female leads — Showtime’s Weeds is entering its eight season this year, for example — but it seems that 2013 may see far more women in cable TV.

FX will premiere two new shows focused on women this season: the Americans will debut at the end of this month and will feature Keri Russell as a Soviet spy living and working in deep cover in suburban Washington, D.C., in 1981, while a remake of a Danish and Swedish show about investigating the death of a woman found on the border between the two countries, the Bridge, will feature Diane Kruger as the lead American detective and Demian Bichir as Mexico’s investigator.

Showtime, meanwhile, will debut this year a dramatization of the collaboration of sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson called Masters of Sex, which is expected to feature Lizzy Caplan’s breakout role.

It’s been pointed out that these shows will prove good opportunities for women to enter television territory that has been largely dominated by men up to this point. This may have to do with the fact that many of these roles were created by women: Michelle Ashford is the creator of Masters of Sex, while Meredith Stiehm, the creator of Cold Case, is lead writer for the Bridge.

Meanwhile, the reality show Dance Moms has been raking in record ratings in 2013, with the season premiere being viewed by 2.8 million people, with around one million of those viewers being women.

This new focus on women in television may have to do with a recent study by Nielsen, which found that 49 percent of women said they began watching a show because their Facebook (News - Alert) friends were talking about it, compared to 43 percent of men. Twitter conversations, meanwhile, were found to capture only 14 percent of women’s interest, and 16 percent of men’s.

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