Little Women

Little Women is based in the 1960’s about a family of women. It starts with a young woman, Jo, submitting a paper about a book that she wrote, and gives it to a man who seems to abuse his power and is rude, he crosses out everything she wrote, but it doesn’t hold her back. One of the sisters waits for her date to a ball, and her date ends up ditching her and then shows up by himself, drunk, and embarrasses her. He then said he can’t wait for her to spend someone else’s fortune instead of his, but she will prove him wrong. Jo writes another paper and she goes to get an opinion from another man, but he was very rude and criticized her work. She finally stood her ground saying she will write her paper herself and doesn’t need his opinion because it is essentially invalid. She secretly does take his thoughts into consideration and fixes the paper. The family of women all have strong personalities and are independent. They have a strong bond that is shown throughout the movie. Although they get into arguments as everyone does, their bond grows stronger. When Christmas came around, they brought their breakfast to the home next to them where a single mom was raising many kids and they didn’t have food to eat. The families of women worked together and supported each other. The women take care of each other and don’t rely on men. One of the girls says to Lawrence, a rich young man, that as a woman there’s not enough opportunities. Marriage is an economic proposition she says and she cannot do anything without a man which is unfortunate. She has to marry rich because during this time period, there were no opportunities to get money besides relying on a man. Janet McCabe from Feminist Film Studies states “But by then the new image of American woman, ‘Occupation: house-wife’, had hardened into a mystique, unquestioned and permitting no questions, shaping the very reality it distorted” (McCabe 5). Being a house-wife was the only job a woman really had, and women don’t have the option to choose a career path. This was the reality for women and it truly hurt women in society because they were not receiving the same rights and chances as men. Lawrence tells Amy, Jo’s sister, that he loves her but she says no because she comes second to Jo (because he had a crush on her) but she doesn’t want to come second. She deserves to be someone’s first and she doesn’t want someone to settle for her. The women in the story show what it is like to be a strong, confident woman and they are inspirations. Towards the end of the movie, Joe tells her sister that she wants to build a life with her because they can thrive together as women. Lawrence confesses his love to Jo, but she denies it because although she loves him, their lives don’t mix. She is the only one thinking about reality, where he’s only thinking about his feelings. She doesn’t want to get married and she wants to be an independent woman. When the women’s aunt passed away and left them her house, they tried to come up with a plan to do something great with the money like a women’s college or a school. The author critic tells jo that girls want to see women prosper, get married and not be on their own, but she disagrees. She wants to show the world what it is like to be happy with yourself and to believe in yourself.