Amy Sherman-Palladino, the brain behind the critically acclaimed series The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, created history Tuesday by becoming the first woman to win in both comedy writing and directing categories.
Sherman-Palladino won for the pilot episode of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, her period comedy about a New York City housewife-turned-stand-up-comedienne.
She started her first acceptance speech with a feminist joke, "Whoever put that carpet downs hates women. I just want to say that right away. Time's up, okay?"
"It takes a giant village full of Union crew members to make sure that Maisel goes out on the streets of New York and takes your parking spaces from you," she added after winning the directing trophy.
Sherman-Palladino was up against tough competition in both the categories, including last year's winner in the directing category, Donald Glover (Atlanta). Other nominees she beat included Hiro Murai (Atlanta), Bill Hader (Barry), Mark Cendrowski (The Big Bang Theory), Jesse Peretz (GLOW) and Mike Judge (Silicon Valley).
In the writing category, Sherman-Palladino topped Glover as well as Stefani Robinson (Atlanta), Alec Berg (Silicon Valley), Alec Berg and Bill Hader (Barry) and Liz Sarnoff (Barry).
Last year Lena Waithe created history by becoming the first African-American woman to win the comedy writing award. She shared it with Aziz Ansari for Master of None. Jill Soloway was the most recent female director to win the comedy directing Emmy for Transparent in 2016.
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel topped the comedy category as it took home five major awards, including Lead Actress for Rachel Brosnahan, Supporting Actress for Alex Borstein, and Outstanding Comedy Series in addition to Sherman-Palladino's wins.
