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Hayley Atwell On Sexism In Agent Carter And The Insidiousness of Modern Misogyny

"That got really deep."

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Ready for another round of your faves being very well spoken about feminism? Of course you are.

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Yesterday Harpy, the new geek girl vertical on Hitfix, published an interview with Agent Carter’s Haley Atwell on her success within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, her experience with social media (spoiler alert: she’s not just on Twitter), and who the “real villain” of the show is—the mysterious Leviathan, or the very blatant sexism Peggy faces on a near constant basis. To that, Atwell answered:

I think it’s a bit of both. It’s funny, this whole thing of sexism, because it was more prominent in the ’40s. It was more on the surface. So now looking back on it we can identify moments of misogyny or sexism. We can see them happening. Nowadays it’s a lot more subtle in things like – if a woman is in a high position, she finds herself being called a bitch or accused of being difficult. I think it’s much harder these days to identify moments of sexism, because they just have very sophisticated ways hiding themselves. […]

I think prejudice is always going be there. We just have to trump it.  We just have to keep on exposing it and trumping it and revealing it and naming it and making it clear and bringing it out into the light, out into the open to see it for what it really is. And then it really, truly has no power.

…that got really deep.

She also added later in the interview, “It is really frustrating, but it also means that we just have to — what’s that quote? Like, I don’t think I’ve ever been a victim of direct sexism, but I am a victim of constant cryptic sexism in some shape or form.” In particular, she noted a time when someone congratulated her on her marriage potential after finding out how many few relationships she’d been in at the time.

“I’ve also been in relationships where they’ve had a real issue with me having had a past because I’m a woman,” she said. “And I think that’s a real eye opener. So yes, of course we’ve moved forward but we still don’t really have equality. They still find ways to undermine you.”

Man. Imagine dumping Peggy Carter because you couldn’t get over how many people she’d been with before you. What kind of a chump even does that?

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Of course, Atwell had more to talk about than her own experiences with sexism—be sure to check out the full interview on Hitfix Harpy to hear more.

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