Moss in new feminist role in Mad Men

No bra-burning for this small-screen feminist icon.

US actress Elisabeth Moss said her character Peggy Olson on TV drama Mad Men is an "everyday feminist".

The 29-year-old has seen Peggy through five seasons of the 60s-era show - from when she started as meek, drink-pouring secretary for creative ad man Don Draper (Jon Hamm) to the boundary-breaking copywriter she is now, the only woman in the office who isn't a secretary.

"She's been quite, you know, excuse the word, but quite ballsy for that time period and for her age.

And I really admire that in her," Moss told The New Paper over the phone from Queenstown, New Zealand, where she is filming the BBC miniseries Top Of The Lake.

Eschewing the typical dramatisation of the feminist movement, the writers of the series have made Peggy deal with the everyday stresses of the office and try to break into the boys' club that is the Madison Avenue advertising world of that era.

It is a struggle which Moss thinks has not really gone away five decades later.

"There's more freedom, there's more opportunity. The objectification of women is still very prevalent.

"As women, you know, there'll always be this struggle between being a mother, being a wife, being someone who has a job, doing any one or combination of those three things that I think a man will never reallyhave," she said.

No personal anecdotes from Moss on that note, though.