Was Louisa May Alcott a trans man?

Peyton Thomas — host of "Jo’s Boys: A Little Women Podcast" — looks at the evidence in a NYT op-ed.

Alcott, we're told, "used the names Lou, Lu or Louy." And: 

"... I was teaching 'Tristram Shandy' that semester so I ordered the audiobook and then, by mistake, I listened to the whole thing on shuffle play. Without realizing it."

"Only later did I come to understand this is what Sterne wanted! In 1767!"

Said Jill Lepore, quoted in "The Best Book Jill Lepore Ever Got as a Present Is One She Hates" (NYT). The headline refers to a copy of "Little Women," a gift from her mother — "It drove me crazy, the daffiness of the 19th-century girl."

I confess I've never read "Tristram Shandy," but I know it's structurally weird. Wikipedia says the author's "narrative structure digresses through many jumbled and fragmentary events into a non-traditional, dual overlapping plot." It really is very funny that the professor who was teaching the book listened to it on shuffle — that is, with the chapters in random order.

"The predominantly white and male guardianship of the literary and intellectual high ground tended to view the essential American story as a solo confrontation with the wilderness..."

"... not a love triangle or intimate domestic saga. Nineteenth-century men of letters 'saw the matter of American experience as inherently male,' the literary critic Nina Baym wrote in her 1981 essay 'Melodramas of Beset Manhood.' It was a complete negation of women’s points of view, not just an artistic dismissal. That doesn’t mean American women’s fiction wasn’t popular — like 'Little Women,' Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin' could barely keep up with demand after its 1852 publication. But that widespread appeal was used to slight the genre out of hand and further relegate it to the status of mere entertainment. As Ms. Baym noted, Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one, complained in 1855 about the 'damned mob of scribbling women' whose inexplicably popular work he feared would hurt his own book sales. There’s some truth in the notion that women strove to write works that would sell — Ms. Alcott herself said she wrote 'Little Women' 'at record speed for money' while men toiled away on epics like 'Moby-Dick' that would fail to generate much income.... It may be that on its surface, 'Little Women' doesn’t seem as fresh and progressive, comparatively. Maybe men feel it’s too familiar — the book has been turned into a movie no fewer than seven times, including a little-seen version released just last year. But in an era when sequels and remakes clog the film landscape (many of them male-centered), it’s hardly an exception...."

From "Men Are Dismissing ‘Little Women.’ What a Surprise/The rejection of the latest screen adaptation of the beloved novel echoes a long-held sentiment toward women-centered narratives" by Kristy Eldredge (in the NYT). Eldredge is responding to a tweet by Janet Maslin, which read: "The 'Little Women' problem with men is very real. I don’t say that lightly and am very alarmed/In the past day have been told by 3 male friends who usually trust me that they either refuse to see it or probably won’t have time."

1. The media churn up this notion that you're supposed to see films. But, really, there doesn't need to be a reason not to see a film. There needs to be a reason to see a film. And films are aimed at particular sorts of people. It's absurd to criticize anyone, ever, for "rejection" of a film. Reject them all! The presumption is no. Then select only what feels right for you, what's worth your time and attention.

2. Almost no one needs to select another remake of "Little Women" as what they will allow to occupy their own precious mind for 2 hours. It doesn't matter that it's well made and the acting is good or whatever. Select it if it serves you. You don't owe Hollywood anything. Hollywood makes its offer to you, and you will be saying no to almost anything.

3. There's no reason for anyone to feel a gender-based obligation to see this or that. If something doesn't appeal to you, go somewhere else. The movie was made with intense conniving to appeal based on gender. "Little Women" gets the women that go to the movie in response to that appeal. Rather than say men ought to strive against their feeling of gender-based exclusion, I'd say women ought to strive against the pull of gender-based inclusion.

4. Louisa May Alcott herself had a distaste for what she was doing writing that book specifically for females! She wrote in her journal (quoted at "Girls adored ‘Little Women.’ Louisa May Alcott did not." (WaPo): "Mr. N wants a girls’ story, and I begin ‘Little Women.’ … I plod away, though I don’t enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters; but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it."

5. I wrote "females" under point #4 because you can see she was writing for girls — not women. It's a young adult novel. "Little Women" are "little" in the sense that they are very young. They're girls. It's horrifying that women are catered to with this story over and over again. Why is any adult interested in this material? Ask that, rather than ask why adult men are not interested.

6. Let people be interested in in the stories they're actually interested in. Don't push them to invent an interest to something that does not call out to them. It's awful to lose touch with what you really feel, who you really are, and to generate a false sense of interest in what you've been enticed to think you ought to like. That's a general problem in life, not specific to movies.

7. Does the question what is "the essential American story" have any serious meaning in the context of what movies people are choosing to go to see? Even if it's true that males dominate the activity of deciding what is "essential" and what is "American" — or what is "the intellectual high ground" — that has little relevance to the question of what's the next movie you're going to see. Let's assume "Moby-Dick" is that thing. I don't see any good film adaptations of "Moby-Dick"! The movies aimed at men don't come from an "intellectual high ground." They're low-culture stuff from comic books! Loads and loads of young-adult material.

8. "Moby-Dick" is not "a solo confrontation with the wilderness."

Is it true that "The term 'tomboy' has long sounded alarms among conservative parenting factions for its perceived association with lesbianism and departure from traditional femininity"?

I'm trying to read "'Tomboy' is anachronistic. But the concept still has something to teach us," by Lynne Stahl (a humanities librarian who teaches popular culture, gender theory, and critical information studies at at West Virginia University)(in WaPo).

I'm interested in the idea of a "tomboy," which I remember from my long-ago youth. There was a girl in our neighborhood who was the tomboy. It was what she was. What did she do? I remember only 2 elements: 1. She ran around with no shirt on in the summertime, and 2. She loved the 3 Stooges — especially Moe.

From the second paragraph of the WaPo article:

The term “tomboy” has long sounded alarms among conservative parenting factions for its perceived association with lesbianism and departure from traditional femininity...

With my memories of childhood, I wondered if that's true. Do conservatives look askance at tomboys? I haven't consorted with many conservatives in the last 50 years, but, growing up, it seemed that people were pleased to see a tomboy. I heard pride. So I clicked that link on "conservative parenting factions" and got:

[IMAGE MISSING/LINK HAS GONE DEAD]

Did the link go to just one book (as evidence of "factions")?

Click the image to enlarge it and clarify and you'll be able to see the URL: "https://www.amazon.com/Parents-Guide-Preventing-Homosexuality/dp/0830823794." I wondered if there was a parents guide to preventing homosexuality and, if so, whether it represented real "conservative factions."

I tried searching Amazon for parents guide to preventing homosexuality and the top item — and the only even remotely apt item — was this:



That's not the Richard Cohen who was my husband in the 1970s and 80s (and it's not the Richard Cohen who's a Washington Post columnist). This person is presented as a "psychotherapist." The description of the book says: "Did you know that every day people change from 'gay' to straight? This is a must read for every parent, teacher, counselor, clergy, and all who wish to understand what drives homosexual feelings and how to respond in love." I don't know how much that has to do with feeling alarmed about manifestations of tomboyism.

Stahl (the author of the WaPo article) continues, saying that the term "tomboy" has...

... come under scrutiny in progressive circles, too, with some critics arguing that it upholds the essentialist notion that anatomy largely determines children’s behaviors and inclinations. The author of a 2017 New York Times essay who wrote that her daughter was more a tomboy than a transboy sparked debate around gender-nonconforming children, and the argument about this trope has also unfolded across Facebook communities and clinical studies.

Yes, I blogged about that 2017 article ("My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy," by Lisa Selin Davis). I said:

Davis is trying so hard to be politically correct, and everything she writes is so scrupulously polite. But in the process she's shedding light on an important problem: More pliable parents and children are being urged to interpret gender-role fluidity/nonconformity as a condition that needs treatment with medical interventions.

Stahl, in the WaPo column, is bringing up this topic because there's another Hollywood adaptation of "Little Women" in the works, and "Little Women" has a character, Jo, and she's explicitly called a tomboy. From Chapter 1:

"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the long figure stretched on the rug.

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."

"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"

"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"

"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking" ended for that time.

"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady."

"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! 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!"

And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.

"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.

"As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether too particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose, if you don't take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's slang."

"If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready to share the lecture.

"You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted her, for the 'Mouse' was the pet of the family.

These 4 female stereotypes, so crisply reeled out in Chapter 1, are seared into the American mind. I remember reading that, and I thought it was obvious that the one to be was Beth (who's so good it's — spoiler alert — the death of her). But then I thought it was obvious that the best Stooge was Curly, but our local tomboy loved Moe.

Anyway, what are we doing here? Does the WaPo writer, Stahl, have anything new today, anything beyond The Great Tomboy Foofaraw of 2017? She notes — remember, she's a librarian — that "fictional stories about tomboys... also feature plotlines that inevitably pair these characters off with boys, offering uncomplicatedly happy, tidy conclusions in which the tomboy drops her resistance and acquires a boyfriend." (Was tomboyishness "resistance" to love from a man?)

It’s a process that constricts their characteristic independence, and it can feel torturous for those of us who don’t identify with traditional femininity — and who see something of ourselves in fictional figures who reject it. Empathetic viewers might want to see a character embrace her singleness, even if an actual lesbian pairing is too much to hope for.

The attempt to fix the tomboy by marrying her off invites disturbing associations with real-life medical practices that “correct” high levels of hormones associated with masculine characteristics.

Isn't that inviting disturbing associations with real-life medical practices that 'correct' hormones in transgender youths? Speaking of correct, I'm assuming Stahl wants to be politically correct (and she does inject some pro-transgender material near the end, the maximum distance from this disapproval of hormone "correction").

And can't women "who don’t identify with traditional femininity" find happiness with a man? Is there something inherently independent about "an actual lesbian pairing." It seems to me, people who pair up — whether with a man or a woman — may sacrifice their individuality, but they shouldn't, and they don't need to. I'm sure there are plenty of women "who don’t identify with traditional femininity" who pair up with a man, maintain their identity, and have a great time with their man. And the man likes it too. I mean, the lady will go camping.

Stahl observes that writers of popular stories, including Louisa May Alcott, go for the predictable plotline of having the tomboy put on some feminine clothes and realize how much she wants a man. Stahl makes the solid point that readers can and will "ignore contrived endings" and find satisfaction in the meat of the story, where there is expression of tomboy individualism. She concludes:

If we want greater gender autonomy, we have to understand how traditional ideas about gender linger in the stories we tell and the endings we envision for ourselves. Beyond resisting gender norms, tomboys give us a way to see the complex dynamics that shape our expression and perception of identity. And even if the word “tomboy” is reaching its own ending, the tomboy’s refusal to conform keeps its power still.

I still don't see why "tomboy" must die. If you like this character type, why not keep it alive? Beth may have  — spoiler alert — died of her own overflowing dearness, but doesn't the tomboy have the wherewithal to survive?

Stahl purports to value "the complex dynamics that shape our expression and perception of identity," and once we fully understand that — helped, per Stahl, by the tomboy — the tomboy, a stereotype, has no environment that can support her continuing life.

But if we ever got there, all stereotypes would be anachronisms.

IN THE COMMENTS: Fernandistein says, "ngram of tomboy shows the popularity of the word almost linearly increasing since 1860":