“Broad City” brings a new sense of equality to comedy television — it’s as if Seth Rogen and James Franco wrote HBO’s “Girls,” but better and with an interest in three-dimensional female characters. The show, which premiered on Comedy Central last year, follows two 20-somethings as they navigate post-graduate life in the Lower East Side without stable employment.

Unlike the manic pixie dream girl or sophisticated rom-com sweetheart characters, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson’s protagonists, who share their actors’ first names, singlehandedly break expectations of what is considered ladylike. They are not polite, nor do they have their lives in order, but there is something empowering about the way they behave. Every episode, they are faced with a new quasi-adventure, during which they use their comedic charm to showcase the fact that women can be just as juvenile as men. In one episode, they clean a man’s apartment in their underwear for money.

Every episode of “Broad City” takes down gender stereotypes. As writers and stars of the show, Glazer and Jacobson portray themselves as unsophisticated, goofy and earnestly comedic. They are not trying to fool the world into thinking that they are mature adults — they are just being themselves.

These women are more honest, gross and content with themselves than any other female comedians on television — even “30 Rock’s” Liz Lemon could not have competed with these two. Abbi and Ilana are oblivious to the situations around them, but it is refreshing to see two women trying to navigate young adulthood in the most honest and improper way possible.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2014 Arts Issue. Email Sidney Butler at [email protected].