Summary Little Women: Could Jo starting a school for boys be a feminist act
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Little Women
Many people wonder why Jo starts a school for boys..even though Little Women mentions how much Jo loves boys many times. In Little Men, we can see how Jo and Friedrich wish that their boys grow to respect women, so could Jo starting a school for boys actually be a feminist act?
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Could Jo starting a school for boys be a feminist act
Niina Niskanen/ Little Women Podcast
Summary:
Many people wonder why Jo starts a school for boys..even though Little Women
mentions how much Jo loves boys many times. In Little Men, we can see how Jo and
Friedrich wish that their boys grow to respect women, so could Jo starting a school
for boys actually be a feminist act?
You can Listen to the Podcast here https://tinyurl.com/3vzyb4uz
Episode Transcript. Little Women Podcast
Hello, Little Women fans. Comment shout-out goes to @senseandpeace, who writes
"At the end of part two, Jo states that she'll open up a school specifically for boys.
I've seen people express their dislike about this, which I can understand, but at the
same time, that is Jo's choice. It's not like Louisa May Alcott was forced by anyone to
have a Jo teach boys only. This is also another case of how those people see
themselves in Jo. There's nothing wrong with relating to her and using her as a self-
insert, yet failing to understand her because you can see how Jo relates more to
boys and has an easier time communicating with them. I don't think Jo has any
female friends outside of her family.
plus Jo says this herself who believe is Nat, in one chapter of Little Men when they
talk. The two things she loves are books and boys. Does that make Jo a misogynist
for not including girls? No. She just happens to have an easier connection with boys
same as she feels a connection to books".
We had a whole conversation about this on Tumbrl about multiple moments in the
novel, where it said how much Jo loves boys and how much she loves to take care of
boys.
There are lots of people who say that Friedrich forced Jo to start a school or Friedrich
forced Jo to become a teacher. None of that happens in the novel. So have these
people even read Little Women? In the book, Jo is the one who says that she wants
to start a school. Her exact words are Quote "even before I met my Fritz, I used to
think how when I made my fortune and no one needed me at home, I'd hire a big
house and pick up some poor fore-long little lads who hadn't any mothers and take
care of them and make life jolly for them before it was too late.
,I see so many of them going to ruin for want of help, and at the right minute. I love
them, so to do anything for them, I seem to feel their wants and sympathize with
their troubles. I know I should so like to be a mother to them". End quote. The thing
is Jo is not the one who does the teaching. She runs the school, but she's more than
happy to have Friedrich take on the teaching part.
In the scene in the book where Jo explains her plans on starting school, she clearly
says that what she wants to do is to have a flock of boys that she can nurture, she
can take care of them and can be a mother to them and love them. A lot of people
erase the maternal elements from Jo's character.
Melody and I recently made episodes about this, the chapter where Laurie proposes.
Laurie cries, he stamps his foot, he throws his fist. When Jo says no, he behaves like
a five-year-old, and that behaviour, frustrates Jo, but because she's such a maternal
person, she feels bad for him and wants to comfort him.
Jo sees Laurie as her child. A lot of people mix that with romantic love, but Jo was
always that way with Laurie. Throughout the book series, she refers to Laurie as "the
first boy she ever raised". This was the same with Louisa May Alcott and Laddie
Wisniewski. She liked him, but she could not have an adult relationship with him
because she was more of a mother than a lover.
Despite Jo being a very maternal person, it is being erased from the 2019 film and it
is so odd because the promotion of the movie was all about Greta Gerwig
complaining about Friedrich's character and how she wanted Jo to be either happy
with Laurie or to be single. When in reality Louis May Alcott was not happy alone and
she wanted to have a family and love just not with the real-life Laurie.
Jo might be the most maternal of all March sisters. Meg and Beth are also very
maternal by nature. Amy's probably the least maternal. Amy becomes a mother, but
a lot of people consider Amy to be the closest to a modern mother figure. She's not
like Jo, who is maternal in a way that she wants to have a huge family that she wants
to raise.
I think that Amy is not that maternal actually might be one of the reasons why Laurie
falls in love with her. After all, unlike Jo, Amy refuses to be a mother to Laurie. Jo
nannies Laurie. Jo pets Laurie like a child, even when he's an adult, but Amy is
Laurie's s equal.
"Little Men" is a great book. It appeared in the 1870s, I think it was 1871.
If you don't want to hear the spoilers, stop now and go to read Little Men. Spoilers
begin now.
, Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Men after the sudden death of her brother-in-law. John
Pratt. In Little Men, John Brooke suddenly dies, leaving Meg and his twins behind.
When I was younger and I read Little Men, it was a very important book to me. My
father died when I was 10. My friends.. none of them had lost their parents. I had
some friends whose parents had divorced, but you know, that's not the same thing.
Little Men became a really important book to me because Daisy and Demi lost their
father when they were 10 years old. I could identify with that grief and John was a
very good father, just like my dad. I loved Little Men just as much as I loved Little
Women.
When Little Men appeared, it was a very popular book, just as popular as Little
Women. I don't know why, but nowadays a lot of people don't even know that Little
Women has sequels. There are Little Men and Jo's Boys. Maybe it's because a Little
Woman has been adapted so many times.
Little Men has also been adapted a few times. There are Little Men movies made in
the 1930s and 1940s. There's a Disney movie from the 1990s, and then there is a
Japanese Little Meen anime. I have seen the film since the forties. It's very different
from the book. The Disney film is pretty okay. The one from the nineties takes some
liberties with the plot, but I think it has a similar warm atmosphere that the book
has. Japanese anime is actually by far the close to the novel based on a couple of
episodes I have seen on YouTube.
This is the Little Woman Podcast. Could Jo starting a school for boys be a feminist
act?
It took some time for me to understand why Jo wanted to start a school for boys
when I was a child, and I would read the chapter. "Laurie Makes mischief and Jo
makes peace". That is a chapter where Laurie pulls a very mean-spirited prank and
is catfishing Meg. The child in me was very upset with him, but I didn't understand
what it meant. Then I read Little WomEn again when I was like 16 or 17, and then I
understood that he was doing something really disturbing and I was shocked that Jo
didn't say anything.
Jo was like, "oh my poor Laurie". I think especially women, very easily want to ignore
when a female character turns a blind eye to a male character. I didn't see it or I
didn't want to see it and it took me a very long time to get it that not only Jo loves
boys but Jo adores boys, and Jo also came to realize that there were a set of
behaviour patterns in the boys' world that she did not accept. When Laurie proposes
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