Keep AJ Cook & Paget Brewster on Criminal Minds!

CBS has decided to save money on the best show on television, Criminal Minds, by cutting one of its female characters entirely (Jennifer Jareau, played by AJ Cook) and by severely reducing the part of Emily Prentiss (played by Paget Brewster) in the upcoming season that begins in September. This leaves only one full-time female character, Penelope Garcia as played by Kirsten Vangsness.

While we, the fans, certainly love Garcia, we also love Jennifer Jareau and Emily Prentiss and feel that this show cannot go on in such a state. It is a travesty of modern society that a network would make such a blatantly sexist decision. Everywhere in the world, women are devalued for getting married, for taking our husbands' surnames, for having children, or for having only female children and no male children, or for simply being women...the list is long.

In 21st-century America, this kind of thing should not be allowed to happen. These two female characters are integral to Criminal Minds, not only as valuable members of the team of characters, but also as representatives of a population of strong working women in a field which is still primarily male-dominated.

If CBS goes ahead with this decision, it will surely lose much of the show's fan base (just look at the online response to this story wherever it is printed) and one of its best money-making shows will no longer be so.

Shame on you.