This is the great contradiction of Jo’s character. People at large know that she’s a tomboy, but she’s an incredibly maternal figure. In her essay “Toys, games, and Play in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women” Anne-Kay Philips mentions that Louisa May Alcott’s mother, Abba Alcott, had the custom to invite the young men of the neighbourhood to spend the evenings at the Alcott’s home providing healthy entertainment so that they would not fall into unhealthy temptations.
What those temptations would have been during those times? Drinking, hanging out in billiard halls, a company of ladies who were not considered proper. In the 1994 Little Women film you see Laurie flirting with women, but it’s after Jo has dumped him. So you get the feeling that he’s just acting out, but in the novel, Laurie loves flirting with women and he does this for years before he proposes to Jo and Jo is annoyed by this. Not because she’s jealous about Laurie or anything. She doesn’t think that flirting is proper and Jo doesn’t know how to flirt. We can see that in the under the umbrella chapter when she’s so in love with Friedrich…
