Little Women and the Feminist Imagination speaks of the feminist message that a community of women can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. As Gloria Steinem said, “Where else could we read about an all-female group who discussed work, art and all the Great Questions — or found girls who wanted to be women and not vice versa.”

​

Academic papers address Little Women and the 19th century family, Feminist analysis and critique, women and work, class and economics, sexual orientation, identity and Queer Theory to name but a few.

​

For the purposes of this project we focus on the complexity and power of the relationships of the four sisters.

 

Perhaps we saw ourselves in the sisters, each embodying an archetype of the feminine — Meg, motherly and good; Beth, shy, innocent, intuitive child; Amy, the artist and self-involved beauty; Jo, the questing heroine pushing against the restraints of her gender.

 

Our lived experience as sisters is complex, fraught with intense emotion and contradictions. Sisters offer maps and barriers, showing the way, blocking the way, like us and not like us, liking us and not liking us, competing and supporting. Love and rivalry, loyalty and betrayal, adoration and rage. It’s a rich emotional stew. Teri Apter, author of The Sister Knot, says "can you really love and loathe someone at the same time...rejoicing in their success while wishing them dead?"

 

Twenty-four women have jumped in as contributors to the altered book since its launch in 2014. We are writers, visual artists, dancers, musicians, performers and all sorts of creative souls.

​

​

​