#i mean ok granted my understanding is that 'grief for the heteronormative life you won't be able to lead' is not an uncommon lesbian feelin

[talesofsymphoniac]

Jo March from Little Women (2019) makes me feel aromantic feelings: a manifesto

Okay, basics out of the way-- Jo lives in a time where she is expected to get married and explicitly expresses that she likely never will and has no desire to.

Her character explores ideas about family and growing up and the idea that the past/childhood can't be clung to-- as Beth puts it, "It's like the tide going out. It goes out slowly, but it can't be stopped." In context, she's specifically talking about her impending death, but it's not too much of a stretch to apply it to Jo's sense that "childhood is over," a sentiment that she expresses at Meg's wedding.

Marriage is something that seems to weigh heavily on Jo's mind throughout the movie-- not only is she shown to be supremely disinterested in it for herself, but she also expresses multiple times that she also dreads the marriage of her sisters, viewing it as having them "stolen away" from her. Multiple times in the movie, when she expresses this sentiment, the response she gets is that she will understand when she falls in love, herself. It goes without saying that that is something aromantic people are told a lot-- that they will understand when they meet the right person-- but what resonates with me about this is something else: in these scenes, Jo is expressing her distress, but those who care about her have no way to understand the source of her distress, and no real way to comfort her, because in the framework of their society, there are very few respectable alternatives to marriage.

To me, the scene that highlights this most strongly is the scene where Jo tries to talk Meg out of her marriage. The quote that gets remembered from this scene is Meg's line, "just because my dreams are different than yours doesn't mean they're unimportant." Which is true, and a deeply powerful thing for Meg to get to say, especially given that she's marrying a poor man for love after she's had it impressed on her that she needed to marry well to care for her family.

But that line is heartbreaking from Jo's point of view. Because while she is certainly being a bit of a dick about her sister's future husband, this scene is a last-ditch effort to explain to her family that she feels abandoned and lost. To me, it kind of parallels Laurie's confession later-- Jo wants, more than anything, to stay with her sisters, and she knows that it's not a possibility the way she wants it to be. In the last moment, she confesses this, knowing what Meg's answer will be, knowing that Meg loves her but that they see their futures differently and there is no way around that.

Meg refuses her, explicitly saying that what she wants is to build her life with her new husband. And that's right for her to say, and I very much doubt Jo expected her to say anything else. But Meg says "childhood was going to end eventually. And what a happy end," oblivious to the fact that for Jo, it isn't a happy end at all, and furthermore there is no clear happy ending in sight for her.

I think there is a lot to be said about the fear of losing one's childhood and having to step into adulthood. But I really think there is more going on than that, here. When Laurie confesses to Jo, she tells him that she doesn't think she will ever marry. But she knows that her sisters will, and that Laurie will. It's not just that childhood is ending; it's that as a child, the roles that society expects of her are those of a sister, daughter, and friend, and these are roles she takes on naturally and happily. But for her, stepping into adulthood means new social roles that she can't fill.

She spells this out very clearly when Laurie confesses to her. She can't see herself as a wife, or as a mistress of the house, or in love with Laurie the way a wife should be. Laurie points out that Jo has avoided dealing with his feelings for her for years, and I think the reason for this is the same reason she dreaded Meg's wedding. To Jo, marriage is the reason she loses Meg and Amy, and it is also the reason she can't maintain her position as Laurie's closest companion.

I know that some people probably read Jo's letter to Laurie agreeing to marry him as a feelings realization, or else her settling for a husband that she likes, if not loves, but given her speech about feeling lonely, I read it more as Jo's realizing that if she wants to keep the role she has in Laurie's life, the only way to do it would be to become his wife, or else someone else will. In other words, even though Jo explicitly loathes the idea of marriage, the only way she can see to maintain the closeness that she wants is through marriage.

Laurie says of course she will marry-- she loves too deeply not to. Her mother says that just because she wants to be loved by Laurie isn't the same thing as her loving him. These comments, to me, combine to represent a hurtful trap that nonromantic people are often hit with: Jo is both "too loving" not to eventually find someone she wants to marry, but also, the love she has for Laurie is "not loving enough," since she doesn't want to marry him.

Of course, Jo does get her happy ending adulthood in the form of the school she starts up, with her family ultimately remaining close to her, as well as her own marriage which may or may not have been a fabrication for her publisher. When the world doesn't provide a path for her to follow, she's able to make her own, and of course I think that speaks to all women, straight or otherwise. But those particular elements will always ring a very strong aromantic/asexual bell for me, and I just wanted to talk about that for a while, thanks for reading all this bye.

#little women #little women 2019 #acearo #meta #mine #look i keep seeing people talk about acearo barbie and they're right but. the acearo jo coding is off the walls ok #and like for both of them it's NOT just the lack of interest in men (or women) it's the grief that they seem to feel about it in some scene #i mean ok granted my understanding is that 'grief for the heteronormative life you won't be able to lead' is not an uncommon lesbian feelin #and so is 'i'm losing my childhood/girl friends to marriage and that's a tragedy' (LOOKING AT YOU ANNE OF GREEN GABLES) #but idk. idk. it's subtle but to me the distinction is 'i wish i could marry my girl friends' vs 'i wish my girl friends would never marry' #also. noting yet again that writing about acearo stuff is harder for me than writing about gay stuff