Little Women: Boys Will Be Boys: Starting a Feminist Future

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 to Jo, he treats her the same way as he did Meg. When Jo was 15 and she witnesses Laurie’s mischief. She thinks it’s harmless, but she’s quite misogynistic.