This post is brought to you by a text conversation with my best friend spurned by a Instagram story post by another friend. Ah the miracle of modern communication.

Which character from Little Women are You?

Meg March –  The oldest March sister. Responsible and kind, Meg mothers her younger sisters. She has a small weakness for luxury and leisure, but the greater part of her is gentle, loving, and morally vigorous.

Jo March –  the second-oldest March sister. wants to be a writer, has a temper and a quick tongue, a tomboy, and she reacts with impatience to the many limitations placed on women and girls. She hates romance in her real life, and wants nothing more than to hold her family together.

Beth March –  The third March daughter. Beth is very quiet and very virtuous, and she does nothing but try to please others. She adores music and plays the piano very well.

Amy March –  The youngest March girl. Amy is an artist who adores visual beauty and has a weakness for pretty possessions. She is given to pouting, fits of temper, and vanity; but she does attempt to improve herself

Character synopsis borrowed from Spark Notes.

Personally, I believe that we are all a little bit of all of them. It’s pretty clear that each girl represents stereotypes of women and no one person is actually a stereotype. It probably says a lot about you when you pick who you are. (And there’s also a lot to be said of book versus movie versions.)

Younger me identified with Jo, because I am writer and Beth because I am shy, and ultimately I still see those aspects a lot. However, I also see a lot of Amy’s ambition and Meg’s romanticism.

The new Little Women, directed by Greta Gerwig was incredible and the scene between Marmee and Jo in the attic is extraordinarily poignant. I believe that period pieces can speak as much to people today as modern settings. And since Little Women was one of the first “classic” novels I read, getting to see a new version adapted to the screen in 2019 was awesome.

This blog post is kind of just a jumble of thoughts, but I felt inspired. I love this story and I have a lot of thoughts about it, which I only scratch the surface here… But I wanted to talk about it.

Women, even today, have to rail against being put into a box. We are not one characteristic. We contain multitudes. We, like Jo, have to fight for the acknowledgment of our work, our art, our contributions. We, like Meg, have to fight against the notion that you are either a strong independent feminist that doesn’t need a man, or you conform to the traditional marriage, family, concept that used to be women’s only option. (You can have both! Life isn’t black and white.) We, like Amy, want to be great, want to be acknowledge, want to be known. We, like Beth, take great care to hold on to our gentleness and kindness when the world is unkind to us.