'Mad Men' star Elisabeth Moss: If you're a woman, you're a feminist -- if you're a man, you should be one too

In two interviews published Thursday, "Mad Men" star Elisabeth Moss explained why she -- and her character -- were both feminists.

Moss, who plays Peggy Olson on the AMC drama, described her character as an accidental feminist in an interview with Christopher John Farley of the Wall Street Journal.

As Peggy rises from the position of secretary to chief copy-writer, "she keeps sort of bumping her head up against the glass ceiling, not really even realizing it is there," Moss explained. "So she just keeps doing it, which I think is the story of a lot of women in the workplace."

Moss elaborated on that aspect of her character in a second interview, telling the New York Daily News that Peggy faced challenges that no other character on "Mad Men" faced.

"She was trying to something no other character was — being treated as an equal in a man's world."

Moss said she was raised in a progressive family and never experienced the types of challenges that Peggy faced. But she was thankful for women like Peggy who fought to raise their status in the workplace.

"If you're a woman, you're a feminist," she told Farley. "If you're a man, you should be a feminist. Feminism is just about believing in equal rights. If anyone believes in equal rights for anyone, I think you're a feminist."

"I'm very excited to see what is happening with feminism right now. There was a bit of a backlash, women were sort of running away from the idea, and I think it is really coming around in this new wave to kind of be something that is very natural and to be proud of."

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by the Wall Street Journal, below: