(Spoilers ahead. You've been warned.)
World War II has ended, and Peggy Carter is now treated like a secretary by her superiors and colleagues at the Strategic Scientific Reserves (SSR). Most of them imply that her serving with Captain America had something to do with her sexuality and seem to be entirely blind to her talent and baddassery, not to mention the fact that she seems to always be two steps ahead of every one of them. There's one guy, a war vet who lost his leg (played by Victor/Tony from Dollhouse...and yes, I just had to mention that), who chivalrously points out that his colleagues' treatment of Peggy (including a derogatory comment about her being Captain America's "liaison") was rude and no way to treat a colleague, but afterwards, Peggy tells him that she wishes he hadn't done that. Victor Agent Sousa is a bit confused, but Peggy puts him in his place by telling him it doesn't help her position and that she can handle any childishness thrown her way, even if neither of them like it.
I think the correct expression to use here is...boom.
What's so great about this scene, even more than when Peggy is running around and taking out bad guys, is that she calls out all forms of sexism, including "benign" and unintentional iterations...you know, the "white knight" or gentlemanly types. These types of men, who still exist today, are not aware that they are acting sexist because they are nice to women and they "stand up" for women who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves in that situation. (Yes, there's a difference between a person "helping" another person who can take care of herself and a person helping another person who cannot.)
The point I'm trying to get across here is not that men being kind to women is sexist or that men can never be allies in feminism. Being an ally in any kind of belief for equality is important but difficult (think: whites in fighting racism, heterosexuals fighting for gay rights, and cisgender persons supporting trans equality). The challenge arises for allies (i.e., those belonging to the more privileged group) when they try to stand up for equality on their own. Allies (men in the case of feminism) should not make the message about themselves, and when those who should be leading the movement (women in the case of feminism) point out that they are not helping, allies need to listen without taking constructive criticism to be an attack.
So, what does this have anything to do with the scene in Agent Carter? Agent Sousa is kind of in the position of an ally who, while meaning well, does something that Peggy feels was unhelpful to her as the sole female agent in her office. She makes this clear to Agent Sousa after all the a-holes leave, and quite frankly, he takes it quite well. He says that he wishes they wouldn't treat her the way they did, but Peggy calmly but firmly says that she can take it, and he isn't resentful when she makes it clear that she doesn't need him standing up for her. Fantastic way to promote feminism: softly, but firmly, and correcting misconceptions by well-meaning but mistaken allies.
Peggy also puts the sexists in place without them even knowing it. The series pilot started out with Peggy's friend Howard Stark (yep, that's Tony "Ironman" Stark's daddy) being framed for selling dangerous technology to the enemy and asking her to clear his name. Peggy is basically working against her colleagues who are trying to apprehend Stark, but she seems to get to the clues two steps before them. Like I said before, her colleagues are completely oblivious to her talents. She often exploits their sexists views of her to get the job done without them knowing it. For example, she gets the information she wants by pretending to serve coffee at a confidential meeting. She gets time off by referencing "female problems," which, predictably, her bosses don't question. Based on the information she got from the meeting, she goes undercover to a fancy ball, makes contact with an underworld dealer, and steals the product which is a weaponized version of the technological blueprint stolen from Stark. Her colleagues arrive long after Peggy is gone and after the dealer had been murdered by a third party. They were late because they had been dressing up for the ball, and one sadly remarks that maybe they took too long changing clothes.
Again, boom. Take that sexism.
Now, all that has aired so far is the two-part pilot, so the rest of the series may be disappointing or less impressive. But after the pilot, I have a lot of faith in this series. Let's hope Peggy continues to kick sexism in the butt and other anatomical parts.
