Broad City Perfectly Captured The Climate For Young Women Post-Election

For the first time on Broad City, Ilana (Ilana Glazer) and Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) are braving the New York winter. They are also braving the new world that is Trump’s America after the contentious election from last November. It wasn’t as overtly political as, say, American Horror Story: Cult with its ideological extremism. Instead, Glazer and Jacobson kept it real by focusing on some of the day-to-day changes women have had to consider in the wake of an election that did not skew their way. I’m willing to bet that a bunch of people who aren’t New York stoners can seriously identify with them.

The second episode of season four is back in the present day after the premiere took us back to the day the two women met. This week’s episode opened with Abbi and Ilana escorting a woman into an abortion clinic. On either side of their path were anti-abortion protesters, likely re-energised by the election of a certain orange-haired politician. Clad in their pink worker vests and Ilana in a now infamous pussy hat, she and Abbi discuss haircuts as they casually stroll between the mob.

And because this is Broad City, the two besties couldn’t let the moment pass without getting on their own soap box after making sure the patient was inside safely. Blowing weed smoke into the protesters’ faces, Ilana and Abbi say they all need to “chill.” Agreed. They get at least one convert. A man who seconds earlier had yelled about foetuses being “god’s children,” suddenly wondered aloud, “why are we doing this?”

But the scene outside of the abortion clinic wasn’t the only moment with a message in the episode. After a casual adventure that involved Shania Twain and sex with her old flame at Soulstice, Abbi is finally in possession of a package she was trying to retrieve. Inside the box is enough emergency contraceptive to last her four years.

This scene really hit home because earlier that same day, some co-workers and I were talking about IUD’s and I was the only one of us who didn’t have one. Women are worried about the options available to them under an administration helmed by the same person who suggested that women should be punished for receiving an abortion, and openly mocked the appearance, and bragged about grabbing a few others by the pussy. I don’t blame them.

That all of these things are just part of the flow of Abbi and Ilana’s day, says a lot about the way people have been called into action, even after the ballot closed. When R29’s very own Ariana Davis interviewed Hillary Clinton about the election and the release of her new book, the former candidate said, “Resist, insist, persist, and enlist.” This is exactly what our Broad City protagonists are up to, and many of us are right there with them.