“I hope I’m the first of many [women],” Bigelow said backstage at the 82nd Academy Awards on Los Angeles on Sunday, reports Access Hollywood. ”But I’m grateful if I can inspire some young, intrepid tenacious male or female filmmaker and have them feel that the impossible is possible and never give up on your dream,” she said with a wishful tone.

As we noted on prior to the ceremony, Bigelow is only the fourth female director to have been nominated in Oscar history, working in an industry where only seven to nine percent of top films are directed by women — a figure that apparently has not changed in 25 years.

Film Critic Manohla Dargis of the New York Times is championing the Oscar winner for showing the world that women can make hard-hitting, gritty, well-made films about subjects often stereotyped as ‘male-oriented’ such as war. “Something like a woman winning best director for directing an action movie and not a romantic comedy is symbolically important,” she said in a recent interview, adding: “The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not in everyone’s comfort zone. That’s [Bigelow's] exceptionalism.”

Well deserved.