The classic NBC comedy broke boundaries with its cast of four older women — representation that was previously lacking on television. Any woman over forty on TV was usually relegated to the role of mother or grandmother at the time and often stayed on the sidelines. The Golden Girls put its protagonists front and center, showing them working, falling in love and living on their own terms in a way audiences hadn't seen before. All four of its central actors won Emmy Awards for their work on the show.

Though key to the concept, the main characters' ages were usually not explicitly stated. However, some deductive work provides a pretty safe estimate of how old the Golden Girls were supposed to be when the show started. The basic facts to work with are that The Golden Girls began in 1985 and ended in 1992 — both in real life and in-universe. For simplicity's sake, each season is a separate year because the show ran for seven seasons. That means coming up with each Golden Girl's age in Season 1 to Season 7 is relatively easy for a super-fan.