So...I just watched the The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants 2. Yeah. I'm a dork. I thought the first one was cute and the second was too.
Of course I just HAVE to analyze something in it. Tibby and the broken condom. I have not read the books, but I'm happy they decided to touch on it in the movie. She has sex like your average college student with her long term boyfriend and the condom breaks. Most of us have been there. At the same time she calls herself a feminist, but she has no idea that there is something called an emergency contraceptive. What kind of feminist goes to NYU and doesn't know about Plan B? UGH! They didn't even make it an option for her!
Does this have something to do with the target audience? I don't know much about the books, but I'm guessing they were aiming for a teen audience. It's like a conspiracy. They don't want women to have abortions, but they don't want us to have birth control either. At the same time we're not supposed to have sex at all! Oh wait! We're supposed to have sex when we're married so that we can procreate, right? But that's the only time. So, if we only have sex while we are married and to procreated, then we don't need birth control or abortions.
So, if Tibby had been pregnant (she obviously wasn't) she would have just had the baby and missed out on all the wonderful things about being in college and following her dreams. "LUCKILY", it was just a scare. She still should have had the option of some sort of back-up contraception.
The thing that got me the most? Tibby said that she felt something very strong/special that night and she thought she was being punished for having those feelings.......
Now, I know I'm mixing fiction and real life, but what about society would make a college aged woman feel like she needed to be punished for enjoying sex with the man she's in love with? It's because society's views of women and sex are completely off base. Actually stupid would be better. STUPID.
Sorry. This stuff makes me angry. I am happy that they showed at least one reality: some of us ladies have pregnancy scares. GO TRAVELING PANTS! WHOO HOO!
Watch it. It's a cute movie and it's not just for little girls or teenagers. I'm 25 and I liked it. They just need to do an edit and add the part where Tibby goes to the pharmacy to get Plan B.
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I agree. I'm 37 and LOVE this movie and the first one as well. I thought the same thing when Plan B never came up in the movie.
I agree. I'm 37 and LOVE this movie and the first one as well. I thought the same thing when Plan B never came up in the movie.
Plan B actually came up in the book...for a very short, brief time. Brian (her bf) called her, and since she was ignoring his calls, he left her a message about Planned Parenthood having plan B available. I don't quite remember what her response to that was. It's been a while since I've read it lol
"At the same time she calls herself a feminist, but she has no idea that there is something called an emergency contraceptive. What kind of feminist goes to NYU and doesn't know about Plan B?"
What the heck is that about? I didn't know a criterion for being a good feminist was knowing all of one's birth control options.
Anyway, if the book mentioned Plan B but purposely left it out of the movie, then that's pretty dumb.
"What the heck is that about?"
She just meant that it was completely unrealistic. Generally college-age women, especially college-age feminists, have some familiarity with plan B. I don't see how you read any implication of a feminist litmus-tests into her statement.
I'm in college and I know many people who don't know about it. Not to mention that scares of any kind tend to make you panic and forget all your options.
Easy. When you make a judgment about what feminist women should and shouldn't know, then you're implementing a litmus test. Does a feminist have to know where all the Planned Parenthoods in her county are? Does she have to know what services they provide? Does a feminist have to know where all the Crisis Pregnancy Centers are? Does a feminist have to hold a Women's Studies degree? Does she have to know how any one birth control option works (a lot of women confuse Plan B with the abortion pill)? Does a feminist even have to identify as feminist? Maybe you can answer these questions for me so we can both know if I'm really a feminist.
Yeah I find that a little hard to believe. When I started college, way back when, we had a whole orientation on safe sex and pregnancy prevention. I definitely knew about Plan B even though I wasn't even close to having sex. Plus in college it is so easy to obtain stuff like that and student health centers make it very accessible.
That's not true for every college. Birth control options weren't advertised at our health center. We had EC, but it was there primarily for sexual assault victims. Of course, it was provided for women for any reason. Most of the young women requesting it said that the condom broke (which was likely untrue most of the time). And EC was the only birth control option available on campus.
Hmmm...
The book was published in 2001.
Plan B was first approved by the FDA in 1999 (available by prescription).
It's possible that the author didn't know much about it.
Are you sure it was approved in 1999? I'm pretty sure I knew about it in 1996 when I start college, or soon after. Perhaps it wasn't the same medication as Plan B is known today, but there was emergency contraception at the time.
It was, indeed, mentionned in the book. Brian call her, to tell her about it, she doesn't answer, he leave her a message. She never acts on it. Maybe because the author doesn't know a lot about it, although the fourth book, the one in which this happen, was published in 2007. But mostly because of the character's way of dealing with things: i.e., not dealing. In the first book, she reacts in the same way to her friend Bailey's sickness, refusing to talk to her on the phone, to go see her on the phone. Tibby just shut off everything that distress her, as if she belive that if she doesn't acknowledge it, it will disappear. In the book, you really get inside her head, and you know it is because she is totally freaking out about the situation, and just wish she never slept with Brian. Not because she thinks she is being punished, but because she doesn't want to have to make the life-altering decision that will come if she is pregnant.
Honestly, from a feminist point of view, the book was a lot better than the movie. In the book, like I said, we understand what is going on in Tibby's head and it is in character for her, and not in a "I did something bad, I'm being punished" kind of way.
In the book, Lena has a brief fling with Leo, sleep with him, see it means nothing, they are just friend. Then Kostos come back, and she pushes him away: she doesn't love him anymore, and doesn't need him, even though he will always be special to her, since he was her first love.
In the book, what pushes Carmen to do the play isn't that a guy that she find attractive is pushing her to; in fact, there's no guy for Carmen in that book. The casting director, a great woman who see her potential, push her to try out and Carmen do brilliantly.
That's what I liked about the book, and that I didn't like about the movie. The book is about the girl learning to be happy with themselves, and becoming adults; the movie is about them finding love. Gah.