I read how Louisa edited Little Woman,
And at one point she seems to have rewritten Amy's scenes,
Making her less flirtatious.
And Jo is quick to criticise her sisters when they wish to fit into the wealthy society.
And it makes one wonder what were Louisa May Alcott's views on femininity.
And I believe her views were rather mixed,
Because when Louisa had extra money,
She actually liked to buy nice clothes to herself.
And there are also diary markings that when she had a love interest to come by for a visit,
She would pay much more attention to her appearance.
There is a scene in the beginning of part 2 where the narrator says that Jo loved to hang out with Laurie,
Because he opened the door to the world of young men.
Jo doesn't want to flirt with these young men,
She wants to be one of the guys.
In the same chapter she is criticising Amy for being flirty,
And Laurie is being very flicky.
First,
He is flirting with the young ladies,
When Jo says that she hates flirty girls.
Laurie is like,
I hate them too.
With Laurie harassing Jo,
It kind of becomes part of Jo's feminist growth.
I've been reading quite a bit about how Louisa wrote about the times when she had been harassed sexually.
Louisa was a very maternal person and she loved to hang out with the young boys.
It's possible that some of them developed a crush on her because of the nurture that she gave them.
That kind of happens between Jo and Laurie,
And I started to wonder that what if you have a strong masculine trajectory,
And then your friend begins to show that they are interested in you,
And you are not interested in them,
But then you can't really judge them because you yourself have that masculine trajectory,
Or boys will be boys mentality,
Which is very questionable these days.
Therefore Jo needs to rebuild her entire identity,
Because Laurie breaks that old model of the ideal masculinity that Jo has had.
There is a great scene where Friedrich comes to court Jo,
And the narrator says that Jo forgot to compare him to Laurie,
Who used to be her model of masculinity.
So Friedrich replaces the toxic masculinity,
Tender masculinity,
And thanks to him and Jo's sisters,
Jo becomes more empathic and kinder person.
When she starts the school,
It is a school for boys,
Because Jo loved boys.
But the people who don't understand it lose a man out of love for boys,
And I am pretty sure that she had somewhat similar experiences in the way she adopted toxic masculine behavior patterns and then grew out of them.
There is a great scene in Little Men where Jo's niece Daisy complains to Jo that boys don't take her to their games,
So she wants a game of her own,
And Jo thinks to herself that there are tons of boys in the house and the only girl is the most difficult to please.
This is one of the things that has always made me question why people think that Jo was sort of born into this world to support women's rights when she was often criticizing her own sex.
But Jo does get Daisy a beautiful playstove and she teaches her to cook.
Someone who I know actually was complaining about this how,
How did Jo dare to buy Daisy that ridiculous stove and minimize her value as a woman?
And I am like,
Are you realizing how misogynistic you actually sound?
That scene shows how Jo herself is growing as a person,
She respects Daisy's individuality.
For those of you who don't know,
Daisy is Meg's daughter,
I don't remember Daisy dreaming about living in luxury.
She is hardworking and self-reliant.
And Jo doesn't expect her to be a tomboy the way she was.
And why should she be?
The idea that all feminists are tomboys,
Which is what a lot of women filmmakers seem to think,
That kind of belief is only going to harm the feminist movement.
And most women are not tomboys,
So it's already incredibly unrealistic.
In Jo's voice there is a scene where Jo actually lectures to young men who are objectifying some of the female students in the campus.
So Jo went from a person who had difficulties to judge a young man's behavior,
Harassing behavior because of their own masculine trajectory,
To someone who actually questioned that type of behavior.
I wish more people would speak about this,
It is important.
Women can be misogynistic towards other women,
And they can grow out of it.
