Part 1 of 4

So I reread Little Women by Louisa May Alcott at the age of thirty, and I said to myself: "Wait one damn second here—Jo is a trans man." I'm not even talking about some happy imagining of my queer brain. Jo March is actually, canonically trans. And because I can't resist the opportunity to make a reasoned argument, I decided to knock down all potential naysayers by writing a nice long essay proving that I'm right about this.

(It's actually going to be more like a thesis. Oh, well.)

Three bits of housekeeping before we begin:

Firstly, because we're operating under the assumption that Jo is a man, I will use he/him pronouns to refer to Jo when I'm talking about him. When I quote from the book, those quotes will retain their she/her pronouns. Clear as mud? Great.

Secondly, remember that trans people don't have to be straight. Those familiar with real trans people will know that they are quite often not. (The vast majority of trans people in my life are non-straight.) And I am of the opinion that Jo the trans man is very much attracted to men. But we'll get to that later.

Thirdly, I am not saying anything about Alcott's gender identity. From what I've heard, there's some evidence that Alcott may also have been trans, but I'm not getting into that. This is just about Jo—who is a fictionalized version of Alcott.

Starting right at the top, Jo claims several times in various ways that he would rather be a boy, such as with the following:

Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.

"Don't, Jo. It's so boyish!"

"That's why I do it." (Chapter 1)

And:

"It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!" (Chapter 1)

 Notice—Jo does not say: "I wish girls were allowed to go fight." And when Amy says whistling is boyish, Jo doesn't say girls can whistle too. Jo whistles because it's boyish. In this situation, we can contrast Jo with another character in Alcott's books—Nan, a girl who appears in Little Men and Jo's Boys, the sequels. Nan is very into women's rights, and kind of like Jo, she refuses to marry the longtime male friend who's in love with her. She actually never marries. But unlike Jo, Nan never says anything about wanting to be a boy. Alcott knew how to write that type of character too. So if Jo just wanted the power that men had in that era, he would be like Nan, working to change the world. But Jo isn't—he is always more concerned with his family than the outside world. Despite outward similarities, the two are actually different archetypes. For Jo, boyish activities are appealing not because men have more power, but because he genuinely prefers them.

 I want to talk for a second here about an accusation I've heard leveled both at Jo and at trans men in general, which is that we're internalized misogynists. With how much Jo loves and admires his mother and sisters, this seems like an odd assumption to me. Let's be clear: trans men don't want to be treated like women, but if they happen to hate women, that's because they're jerks, not because they're trans. I'm a trans man, and I have certain feminine traits of personality, but I don't mind that (in fact, I consider it a good thing). And Jo never encourages his sisters to call themselves by masculine-type names or take on gentlemen's ways. This is a personal aversion to being treated like a woman, not a feeling that women are somehow bad. Got it? Good.

Then we get into the play the siblings put on at Christmas. Now, Jo wrote this script, and as the book says:

No gentlemen were admitted; so Jo played male parts to her heart's content, and took immense satisfaction in a pair of russet-leather boots given her by a friend, who knew a lady who knew an actor. These boots, an old foil, and a slashed doublet once used by an artist for some picture, were Jo's chief treasures, and appeared on all occasions. (Chapter 1)

 Notice—Jo's chief treasures are items that aid him in presenting masculine. Jo plays the wicked would-be seducer and the lover enticing his love to run away with him, the most traditionally masculine roles. Jo fantasizes about being in Macbeth—as Macbeth. After the play, when Mrs. March says she might have invited Laurie to the frolic:

"It’s a mercy you didn’t, Mother!" laughed Jo, looking at her boots. (Chapter 2)

 A look that indicating yes, the "little women" are in drag right now.

So let's go to the party at Mrs. Gardiner's, where your expected behavior is eternally dictated by the body you have. Leading up to that party, Jo seems pragmatic at best, cross at worst, and generally clumsy. Jo asks Meg to wink if he's doing something wrong, to which Meg replies that winking isn't ladylike, and that she will raise her eyebrows instead. Then Meg says:

"Now hold your shoulder straight, and take short steps, and don't shake hands if you are introduced to anyone. It isn't the thing." (Chapter 3)

 The opposite of what Meg is saying is what, exactly? Slumping, long steps, and shaking hands—which looks a lot like masculine behavior.

Jo says:

"How do you learn all the proper ways? I never can." (Chapter 3)

Why can't Jo learn the proper ways? With the right people, Jo can be socially adept. And yet, he can't get the hang of this party, and even three years on, in Volume II, Jo makes social mistakes that hugely mess up opportunities for him. So what's going on?

As we'll see, it's not that Jo can't learn proper manners at all. But Jo does have a lot of trouble with feminine manners. Meg's little speech that I just quoted instructs Jo specifically in feminine behavior. So Jo probably has a history of defaulting to masculine behavior. Here's another piece of evidence for that.

At the party:

…Jo, who didn’t care much for girls or girlish gossip, stood about, with her back carefully against the wall, and felt as much out of place as a colt in a flower garden. Half a dozen jovial lads were talking about skates in another part of the room, and she longed to go and join them, for skating was one of the joys of her life. She telegraphed her wish to Meg, but the eyebrows went up so alarmingly that she dared not stir. (Chapter 3)

 So Jo is more comfortable with unknown men than unknown women—we'll see that theme again. But here's the other thing. Jo doesn't understand right away that joining the lads would be a big social error. Meg has to signal. Jo is unconsciously operating under the social norms that would govern a man's behavior, not a woman's.

Then we meet Laurie, Jo's soon-to-be best friend. Read this:

Laurie's bashfulness soon wore off, for Jo's gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at his ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten, and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her. (Chapter 3)

Note that Laurie is set at ease by Jo's "gentlemanly demeanor." Laurie has known Jo for half an hour at most, and he's still picked up on Jo's masculinity.

When the holiday festivities are over the next day, Meg is cross. Jo says to her:

"Poor dear, just wait till I make my fortune, and you shall revel in carriages and ice cream and high-heeled slippers, and posies, and red-headed boys to dance with." (Chapter 4)

Though this is a joke, we still see the attitude Jo takes towards life and the rest of his family. Apparently, Jo is the one who's going to make the fortune. Not Meg, the eldest. Not Amy, the artist. Jo instinctively places himself as the person who's going to make the money in the family, and in the nineteenth-century United States, the people who made fortunes were generally men. Obviously there were exceptions, but we're talking social norms here. Successful money-making was more associated with masculinity than femininity.

Jo's sisters also think very differently about making a fortune than he does. Meg talks about wanting to have money, but not about earning it, and in the end, she's quite happy to marry John Brooke, who is decidedly not rich. Beth needs very little to make her happy, including money. Amy has grand plans to make money off her art, but in the end gives up on that ambition when she goes to Rome and has the "vanity" taken out of her, stating that she will now: "Polish up my other talents, and be an ornament to society, if I get the chance." (Chapter 37) Jo is the only one of the March siblings who makes plans to earn money and carries them through. This is not a criticism of the March sisters, by the way. Women did and still do a lot of labor that is not monetized but still vital. But Jo is clearly not content with this. Whether that is a good thing or not, I will leave to you.

Later in this chapter, Amy tells a story of her first day back at school. Her classmate drew a caricature of their teacher and got caught. She was made to stand on the recitation platform holding it for half an hour. Response:

"Didn't the girls laugh at the picture?" asked Jo, who relished the scrape.

"Laugh? Not one! They sat still as mice, and Suzy cried quarts, I know she did." (Chapter 4)

Here we see a classroom of girls who see their fellow student and think: that poor girl; that could be me up there; she must be feeling terrible. Now, this goes completely over Jo's head. Jo thinks the situation is funny. This isn't because Jo has no empathy—it's fairly clear throughout the story that he does. It's because girls are taught that getting into trouble is shameful, and boys are taught that getting into trouble is funny. And Jo defaults to masculinity.

In the next chapter, Jo makes up his mind to become friends with Laurie. When Jo notes Laurie watching the Marches having a snowball fight:

"That boy is suffering for society and fun," she said to herself. "His grandpa does not know what’s good for him, and keeps him shut up all alone. He needs a party of jolly boys to play with, or somebody young and lively. I've a great mind to go over and tell the old gentleman so!"

The idea amused Jo, who liked to do daring things and was always scandalizing Meg by her queer performances. (Chapter 5)

It's telling that Jo first comes up with "a party of jolly boys" as what Laurie needs, and not long later ends up making contact with Laurie himself. Jo's habitual enjoyment of daring things also puts him in contrast with every cisgender woman in the book, and with his society's ideas about what a proper girl is supposed to be.

Jo then gets himself invited over via a snowball to Laurie's window. As they chat, Laurie asks Jo how he like his school. Jo replies:

"Don't go to school, I’m a businessman—girl, I mean. I go to wait on my great-aunt, and a dear, cross old soul she is, too." (Chapter 5) 

Even in our modern day, that little slip would indicate that a person just might not be all that comfortable with their assigned gender. In an era with much stricter ideas about gender, to automatically term yourself a man instead of a girl shows a very strong connection to a masculine self-image.

Later in the chapter, Mr. Laurence is observing Jo, and we hear:

"He liked Jo, for her odd, blunt ways suited him; and she seemed to understand the boy almost as well as if she had been one herself." (Chapter 5)

 This is worth noting because again, we see that a person who has known Jo for only a very short time picks up on his masculinity.

A few chapters along, Amy is physically punished for hiding pickled limes in her desk. (I've always wondered if pickled limes are actually as disgusting as they sound.) Mrs. March pulls her out of school, and:

Just before school closed, Jo appeared, wearing a grim expression as she stalked up to the desk, and delivered a letter from her mother, then collected Amy's property, and departed, carefully scraping the mud from her boots on the door mat, as if she shook the dust of the place off her feet. (Chapter 7)

So why is Jo sent to deliver the letter and get Amy's things? Mrs. March wrote the letter; she could have delivered it. Meg is the eldest; she could have gone. But I argue that Jo's family has gotten unconsciously accustomed to seeing him in the same way he sees himself—as the substitute man of the family. When the siblings are arguing over who is going to buy Mrs. March new slippers, Jo says:

"I'm the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone." (Chapter 1)

Notably, told me, not told us. So not only does Jo see himself as the man of the family, but Jo's father apparently singled him out in telling him to take care of Mrs. March.

But Jo is about to display some serious immaturity. And in fact, Jo is going to act specifically the way an immature man would act. After Amy burns up Jo's fairytales, Mrs. March encourages Jo to forgive Amy, and:

"Jo wanted to lay her head down on that motherly bosom, and cry her grief and anger all away, but tears were an unmanly weakness, and she felt so deeply injured that she really couldn't quite forgive yet." (Chapter 8)

Now, you've heard of toxic masculinity, right? Where showing emotion is weakness? That is a type of immaturity that disproportionately affects guys, and we very clearly see that here, because Jo specifies that tears are an "unmanly" weakness. Jo is acting in a very stereotypically male way—bottling up his negative emotions and only letting them out as harmful anger.

Anger itself is not a gendered trait in this book. How do we know that? Because Mrs. March's temper was once as bad as Jo's, and still troubles her:

"I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so." (Chapter 8)

 Therefore, anger itself does not make Jo masculine, but Jo's way of dealing with his anger—letting it overtake him and put people in danger, rather than facing his feelings—has a particular toxic-masculinity flavor to it.

So what's the difference between Mrs. March's mature ways of dealing with her anger and Jo's immature and toxic way of dealing with his? When Jo asks Mrs. March what helped her, Mrs. March replies:

"Your father, Jo. He never loses patience, never doubts or complains, but always hopes, and works, and waits so cheerfully, that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him. He helped and comforted me, and showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example. It was easier to try for your sakes than for my own; a startled or surprised look from one of you, when I spoke sharply, rebuked me more than any words could have done; and the love, respect, and confidence of my children was the sweetest reward I could receive for my efforts to be the woman I would have them copy." (Chapter 8)

What I take from that passage is this: we need other people. Mrs. March is saying here, I needed a partner to balance me, and offer another way of looking at things, and be patient in ways I couldn't be. And she also gives credit to her kids, for motivating her to keep trying and setting a good example.

The type of maturity that Mrs. March is teaching Jo applies to women, but it also applies to men. We're going to see later, mainly in Volume II, that the book's most mature male characters are community-oriented. They have families, whether those families are blood or chosen, just as Mrs. March recommends. In fact, the book implies that a stable, loving partner and some kids are just as important for the men as for the women. In Volume II, we will look more closely at the male characters in this book, and pick out some proofs of this. For now, we know that Jo is going to try to get away from the immature toxic masculinity that defined this chapter, and grow into a better person.

In the next chapter, Meg goes to the Moffats, and overhears gossip claiming her family is scheming for one of their children to marry Laurie. When she tells Mrs. March and Jo about it, Jo says:

"Just wait till I see Annie Moffat, and I’ll show you how to settle such ridiculous stuff. The idea of having 'plans' and being kind to Laurie because he's rich and may marry us by-and-by! Won't he shout when I tell him what those silly things say about us poor children?" And Jo laughed, as if on second thoughts the thing struck her as a good joke.

"If you tell Laurie, I'll never forgive you! She mustn't, must she, Mother?" said Meg, looking distressed.

"No, never repeat that foolish gossip, and forget it as soon as you can," said Mrs. March gravely. (Chapter 9)

Now, when I first listened to this via audiobook, I was totally with Meg and Mrs. March. I was like, "Come on, Jo, don't do that; do you want to embarrass your sister?" So the question becomes—why does Jo think telling Laurie is a good idea at all, when we readers can see it would be socially embarrassing?

Well, for a thing to be embarrassing, there has to be the potential for truth in it. Jo does not see the potential for truth in this gossip—Jo finds it so implausible that it strikes him as hilarious. He doesn't see the possibility of anything but friendship between himself and Laurie. In my opinion, we're back to Jo unconsciously defaulting to masculinity, and thinking the gossip is hilarious because he sees the relationship between himself and Laurie as that of two guys hanging out. And I doubt Jo has any queer role models, so it probably wouldn't occur to him that two guys could have a romance too.

Later in the conversation:

"Poor girls don't stand any chance, Belle says, unless they put themselves forward," sighed Meg.

"Then we'll be old maids," said Jo stoutly.

"Right, Jo. Better be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands," said Mrs. March decidedly. (Chapter 9)

Jo seems quite untroubled at this point by the idea of never having romantic love. This does change over time, so perhaps it's a symptom of inexperience with romance. But in a society where single women are expected to focus single-mindedly on finding husbands, I'm not sure inexperience with romance fully explains it. Look at what Jo is contradicting—the idea of girls putting themselves forward. That means behaving in a particularly sexualized way, by the standards of the time. And Jo's prompt willingness to be an old maid instead of taking on a sexualized feminine role indicates to me that he finds that sexualized feminine role completely alien—a way of behaving he could never pull off. Jo later says "I don't think I shall ever marry" (Chapter 35) and I see in both places the same instinct: to avoid an institution that in Jo's era is extremely gendered, and that he thinks would keep him from being himself.

Now, let's talk about drag again. The March siblings have a secret society called the Pickwick Club, and in this society, they've all given themselves men's names, and address each other as "gentlemen." Furthermore, in their newspaper, the Pickwick Portfolio, they refer to each other with he/him pronouns. This is not exclusive to Jo, but I'm mentioning it anyway because it makes a point about the March household. Imagination and a certain amount of subversion are allowed. Remember the play on Christmas night, where the March siblings got up in drag? Remember how the kids used to play Pilgrim's Progress when they were kids, and continue the conceit of it now that they're teens? And now we have the Pickwick Club, where they're allowed to pretend to be men.

Trans or not, Jo is definitely masculine much of the time, and the March household's imagination and subversion are probably a big reason Jo never seems ashamed of his masculinity. Frustrated by it, perhaps. Ashamed of it? I can't recall a single time. One other interesting thing: in Jo's poem in the Pickwick Portfolio, he describes all four March siblings pretty accurately—except that he describes himself as six feet tall. Now, fantasizing about being taller is a very trans guy thing. Not exclusively, of course, but it's a clue.

Alright, let's talk about cooking. When Jo and his sisters are left to their own devices by Mrs. March, and Jo takes it upon himself to cook dinner, this is what happens:

She boiled the asparagus hard for an hour, and was grieved to find the heads cooked off, and the stalks harder than ever. The bread burnt black; for the salad dressing so aggravated her, that she let everything else go, till she had convinced herself that she could not make it fit to eat. The lobster was a scarlet mystery to her, but she hammered and poked, till it was unshelled, and its meagre proportions concealed in a grove of lettuce-leaves. The potatoes had to be hurried, not to keep the asparagus waiting, and were not done at last. The blancmange was lumpy, and the strawberries not as ripe as they looked. (Chapter 11)

Now, when I first listened to this via audiobook, I remember being like, "Wait, Jo is fifteen? I'm eleven and I could cook a better meal than that." Jo also salts the berries instead of sugaring them, and lets the cream go sour. You might think I'm going to make some point about Jo not being domestic and thus masculine, but it's actually more complicated than that. Cooking was certainly associated with femininity in the 1860s, but I would see no triumph in it if Jo refused to learn something so useful simply because women did it. That would be toxic masculinity. So when Jo decides at the end of the chapter to learn cooking, and that his next dinner party will be a success, I see it not as a step away from masculinity, but as a step towards coming of age—the theme of the book.

Two chapters later, the March siblings and Laurie and various friends head off to have lunch and croquet and such. This is how one of the visiting English girls, Kate, reacts:

Kate looked rather amazed at Jo's proceedings, especially as she exclaimed "Christopher Columbus!" when she lost her oar; and Laurie said, "My dear fellow, did I hurt you?" when he tripped over her feet in taking his place. (Chapter 12) 

So here Jo is, swearing. It's not extreme swearing, but women weren't supposed to swear at all, and you never see any of Jo's sisters doing it, and there's a point earlier in the book where Meg specifically asks Jo not to say Christopher Columbus and embarrass her. Also, Laurie is calling Jo "my dear fellow" and in the invitation, which was addressed to Jo, he says:

"…only do come, there's a good fellow!" (Chapter 12)

That's a masculine term—even in our time, some people find it too gendered. Laurie never uses such terms to the other Marches. If you're still unconvinced, listen to this, which Laurie says upon their arrival:

"Brooke is commander-in-chief; I am commissary-general; the other fellows are staff-officers; and you, ladies, are company." (Chapter 12)

Laurie differentiates between the fellows and the ladies, and Jo, in at least two situations, is a fellow.

I'm going take a hot second now and talk about Laurie. The group is playing Truth, which is Truth or Dare without the Dare, and that gentleman says:

"Now, Miss Sallie, you shall have a chance without waiting to draw. I'll harrow up your feelings first by asking if you don't think you are something of a flirt." (Chapter 12)

That's rude. And this isn't the last time we're going to see him misbehave. Laurie has his own toxic masculinity to deal with, as I will prove later. We're going to keep an eye on it, because as we know, Jo has struggled with the same thing. And how those dynamics might interact is important when discussing the idea of a Jo/Laurie relationship.

Speaking of how Jo and Laurie interact, let's take a look later, when Laurie is complaining about how his grandfather wants him to be a businessman, while he wants to see the world and write music. The March siblings reply:

"I advise you to sail away in one of your ships, and never come home again till you have tried your own way," said Jo, whose imagination was fired by the thought of such a daring exploit, and whose sympathy was excited by what she called "Teddy's wrongs."

"That's not right, Jo; you mustn't talk in that way, and Laurie mustn't take your bad advice. You should do just what your grandfather wishes, my dear boy," said Meg, in her most maternal tone. "Do your best at college, and, when he sees that you try to please him, I'm sure he won't be hard or unjust to you. As you say, there is no one else to stay with and love him, and you'd never forgive yourself if you left him without his permission." (Chapter 13)

Here is Jo's masculinity again—the defiance of authority, the daring exploits. But it's the immature type of masculinity, the kind that doesn't pay attention to the kind of community needs Mrs. March would approve of. Jo doesn't have a lot of good masculine role models right now. His father's away. He doesn't have any brothers. Laurie is a great friend, but I wouldn't call him responsible. Jo has great feminine role models, but since he defaults to masculine, having only feminine role models isn't adequate. We'll see more about what happens with this in Volume II.

One last thing in this chapter: Jo says to Laurie:

"I'll teach you to knit as the Scotch-men do; there's a demand for socks just now." (Chapter 13)

Interesting how Jo takes his domestic task and reframes it as a masculine endeavor.

And we will look at the second half of Volume I next time!

© Elijah Merrill 2024

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