I say “I am a feminist”
and you laugh
because “Women have rights already”

And while you laugh at this movement
you are laughing at the 15 million girls who will become child brides this year alone
you are laughing at the millions of young girls sold into sex slavery
and at the 70% of women in India who are victims of domestic violence
and at the one in five rape victims in the United States
and at all of the people in the world who are discriminated against
because of something as simple as their gender

and in turn, I laugh at you
for your lack of an understanding
towards a movement that affects you 
and everyone that you know and love

But I do not laugh at your rape jokes 
I do not laugh when you tell me to “Shut up and make you a sandwich”
I do not laugh at your utter negligence to an issue as important as this

Because basic human rights are not funny
The very real experiences of those victimized
solely due to their sex
is not laughable
The suffering of my entire gender
is not a fucking joke that you are allowed to make.

Agent Carter needs to be a success. It needs to be a success because sexism is still very much a thing, in Hollywood as in most other large societal institutions. There is an ironic meta-level to this series and to Peggy Carter as a character, wherein she must battle the sexism of her time in order to do the work she feels called to and which is exclusively male-dominated. Concurrently, her series must fight that same uphill battle of entrenched sexism 70 years in the future, in present-day 2015, as it attempts to make a dent in an entertainment genre still depressingly, excessively inhabited almost solely by white men.

Male superhero yarns can be brilliant, and they can be mediocre and they can be downright abominable, and Hollywood will continue to churn them out prolifically like clockwork. If Agent Carter is nor a roaring success, all hopes for a Black Widow movie go rushing down the drain, along with any other female-led superhero movie or TV franchise still in early stages of development. Agent Carter is a test balloon, and all of Hollywood is using this one 8-episode series to pose the question “Can female superheroes be successful? Can they be profitable? Can they be popular?”