Running Head: International Communication Studies 1

International Communication Studies

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Introduction

Feminist history records major campaigns to allow women to vote, have access to higher education, and
have fair wages and working standards. The contention that women and men are the same as human
beings has been at the heart of these movements. As a result, women have the right to fair rights. At first
glance, the idea of equality as a universal definition, i.e. a collection of laws, values, and standards that are
universally accessible to all and should be understood and accepted by all, seems to be an appealing one
for feminism. This traditional sex equality statement is made up of three sections. Women's nature,
women's social care, and women's success are the three topics. He also defines equity as a term that can
only be generalized to two (or more) things in one way or another. In terms of equality, this is described as
having the same freedom to form oneself according to whatever differences one deems important. As a
result, the question of community rights has proven to be very contentious, owing primarily to the
presumption of "no distinction" inequality rules. Many proponents and opponents of women's rights want
equality.

Women's differences from men are valued (the 'bad' and'strong' forms of cultural feminism). Differences
between women's organisations (identity politics). The distinction or distinction within (post-modernism and
poststructuralism). Women's perceptions of themselves and the environment are influenced by the concept
of distinction. This means that not only must structural practices be exposed to feminist criticism and
reorganization, but also that patriarchal alignments in the systems of representation, context, and
understanding must be thoroughly transformed. A politics of distinction means the right to describe oneself,
others, and the world in terms of one's own goals.

Literature Review

In this age, women have the same power as men in the economic, social, and political systems. Feminism
advocates for women's complete inclusion into society, seeking fair rights, equal jobs, equal pay, and
equitable status and care in public and private relationships. If you ask her if she believes women and men
should have equal rights, that women should not be discriminated against because of their gender, and that
men and women should be paid equally for their jobs, she is likely to say yes, as are the majority of men
(Graña Rodríguez 2020, Alcott 2019).

The film, like the novel, tells stories of women who have different aspirations and goals. Jo represents how
women can be economically self-sufficient; Amy represents the compassionate side of women living at the
time who feel pressured to marry wealthy men in order to help their families; Meg marries a poor man out of
love; and Beth demonstrates that women can be altruistic without focusing on riches. Both of the sisters
portrays various aspects of women as subjects and main characters of their own lives. Jo is the most
unforgettable literary character of the above characters.

There are some distinctly feminist passages in the film that deal with the essence of marriage in the
nineteenth century, and they are excellent. The film's heart, though, is focused on the March sisters' private
lives as they build a home together and pursue their innate gifts in writing, acting in plays, drawing, and
caring for small children. Their STEM ambitions are not being stifled. Jo isn't up in the attic building a space
ship that would be ignored by the patriarchy. If second-wave feminism was, as Christopher Lasch argued,
the incursion of patriarchal individualism into domestic life, Little Women shows that there was, and still is,
something powerful about domestic life.

The right of women to make their own choices has been one of feminism's main political claims. Option
feminism has recently reoriented feminist activism by calling for acceptance of the real choices women
make. While second-wave feminism focused on the obstacles women faced in making free decisions,
option feminism has recently reoriented feminist activism by pushing for acceptance of the real choices
women make. The role of feminism, according to this viewpoint, is to validate women's options without
passing judgement. This paper explores this shift of viewpoint by situating women's choices within a late-
modern gender order in which the ideal of preference has been closely associated with a new kind of self-
determining, individuated, and 'empowered' femininity.

Methodology

The methodologies used to explore and analyze how Jo and other characters are portrayed in the
contemporary American television film of Little Women will be presented in this segment. The researcher
will be able to assess the degree to which this film contradicts the traditional portrayal of feminism by using
the two observational methodologies of textual interpretation and focus groups. Using two methodologies
has the advantage of allowing the researcher to present his or her own interpretations and analyses of the
given texts while also obtaining the perspectives of focus group members, resulting in rich and varied
results.

Qualitative testing approaches are flexible, allowing the researcher to be as creative as possible while
collecting data, analyzing data, and evaluating the results. Textual research and focus tests may be used to
assess how the characters of Little Women are portrayed and how the presentation is received by the
public. It was important to weigh the methodologies' strengths and disadvantages before choosing one.
While qualitative methodology does not yield statistical statistics, it does enable the researcher to recognize
and analyze diverse viewpoints when focusing on the researcher's own reflections, thereby contributing to
the intensity of the data collected. Furthermore, qualitative analysis approaches free the researcher from a
pre-determined series of questions or conclusions, allowing him or her to explore areas of concern as they
emerge.

Textual analysis

The research technique of textual interpretation was selected to go beyond the surface meanings and
analyse more unconscious social meanings. As a result, in order to produce an engaging textual study, the
researcher must look beyond the text as an entity and consider the possible meanings of little women.
When doing a textual review, it is necessary to make informed guesses about some of the more possible
meanings of the text. As a result, when doing a textual study, a typical error is for the researcher to feel
compelled to make statements about the text's authenticity or truthfulness. One does not, however, "simply
ignore them as flawed or biased" by using the post-structuralist method of textual analysis outlined. Instead,
the researcher is interested in “understanding the contexts in which these types of representation occur, the
perceptions that underpin them, and the kinds of sensemaking about the universe that they reveal
(Sedgwick 2019).

Army’s self-centeredness turns into an intuitive understanding of how to behave in a way that will attract the
best people and get her the things she wants without exerting much effort. Regardless of their financial
status, Amy knows early on to maintain a professional demeanor. She doesn't have Jo's tomboy wildness,
but she's still not a snob. She needs to make friends with the famous, so she mimics the anticipated habits
when doing so in a manner that makes her a lot of friends. She learns the hard way that friendship with the
rich can be one-sided, and the girls in her art school who seem to be her peers refuse her offer to seek a
longer-term friendship outside of school. She, like Meg, desires the creature comforts and lifestyle that
money can provide. She might have the elite lifestyle if she married Fred Vaughn, as she plans to do at
some point. The irony is that by rejecting Fred and marrying for love, she ends up with the same amount of
money and the chance to share it with a guy she likes.

Amy should be punished by a teacher at school if she has issues at school as a result of her friends'
stupidity. "I oppose corporal punishment, especially for girls. I don't like Mr. Davis's teaching style, and I
don't think the girls you hang out with are helping you. According to the quote above, progressive feminism
asserts that women's biology is intimately linked to their inequality, as well as all forms of sexual abuse.
There is an outcry against women being labeled as marginalized and vulnerable, and the female body as a
target of abuse. When her sister condemns what the teacher has done to Amy, Jo is dissatisfied with a
physical punishment for a woman because the female body is the primary focus of abuse from men's
forces, and women's oppression is directly linked to men's oppression.

Jo continues to be an influential and committed part of her sisters' lives despite the fact that they have
married and passed away. Jo is sitting on the floor of their living room when the plot starts. This is her
tomboy stance of choice. Her father refers to her as "son Jo" because she is so boyish. During the first year
of the book, she matures significantly; her father finds that she has started to behave like a young adult,
that she no longer uses slang, and that she no longer lays on the floor. She will still be at home, playing on
the lawn or in the company of young boys; she is unconcerned with what others think about her. Jo's castle
is a fabrication.

She desires an Arabian horse stable and a magical pen that will allow her to write things that will make her
wealthy and popular so that she can still look after Marmee and her sisters. While her dream is pure fiction,
it is characteristic of Jo. Jo's primary motive for publishing, like LMA's, was to make money. Her writing is
always put on hold because she has other hobbies and ambitions to pursue. In the novel, she writes for
therapeutic purposes on occasion, particularly when prompted by someone else, such as Marmee. And if
she writes for a living, she would not marry for a living, despite the fact that she expresses a strong desire
for her sisters to marry well in the first part of the book. Jo will do whatever gives her the most joy,
regardless of her age or circumstances. It comes as no surprise, then, that she marries a man who is
nearly her father's age.
Jo is a tomboy and a non-conformist, unlike Amy, who is realistic. She despises the notion of marriage and
wishes to use her literary career to support her own family. Since most women were associated with
domestic work at the time, it was difficult for them to gain this confidence. The editor also said in the film
that she should make her female characters either married or dead in her stories if she wants them to sell.
The argument reinforces a negative perception towards women that still exists. Throughout the film, Jo is
torn between proving she's a good writer and telling her own story and proving she's not. Gretta completed
her homework by studying the writer's background. Louisa May Alcott, like Jo, the book's author, never
married. She also talks about how, like Louisa, Jo had to struggle for her artistic work and ownership to be
taken seriously as a woman. No recent adaptation of the novel has been able to pinpoint this, and the
problem continues to exist in society (Alcott 2019 ).

Focus Groups

The use of focus groups and the findings obtained would be an important part of this research. “Focus
groups will provide vast volumes of very rich and complex data,” because while the textual study would
provide one view of Little Women, the researcher can get a larger number of interpretations with the
inclusion of focus groups. Focus groups “value the information that members have to share and have the
ability to add greater openness to the mechanism of knowledge production,” according to the researchers.
As compared to community interviews, using the study approach of focus groups “encourages people to
speak to one another: posing questions, sharing anecdotes, and drawing about each other's perspectives
and points of view.”

Although focus groups are useful for “obtaining a variety of different views on the same topic,” the
participant must recognize that they can be difficult to conduct and “require a high degree of experience
and expertise to be effective.” As a result, a series of pilot sessions will be conducted as a “way of starting
to learn community facilitation skills” in order to improve the efficacy of the focus groups. “Avoid being
judgmental, viewing themselves as insiders, or making decisions that shut off exploration,” says the writer,
who would also serve as a group facilitator. The facilitator can learn experience in "balancing stay quiet and
learning when to interfere" by conducting pilot sessions. It's also important to think about the study's ethical
values, because the research of wheelchair users, and more generally, impairments, can be a touchy
subject, particularly for the participant who uses a wheelchair.

It's crucial to recognize that tense discussions will occur while members hold opposing viewpoints. As a
result, the names of the participants and all data 19 gathered will remain anonymous in order to ensure that
participants feel safe sharing their views, particularly if they differ from those of other members of the
community. Furthermore, “the location should be neutral and easy to find, a spot where participants feel
safe and relaxed,” to ensure that participants contribute candid interpretations. Assuring participants'
comfort and calm should allow them to engage more freely and share their views on the issue more
honestly, thus bolstering the data collected (Sedgwick 2019).

.
Both methods of study have benefits and drawbacks. Focus groups and textual analysis, on the other hand,
provide a "richer view of the reality of the issue or phenomena" by "illustrating another dimension of the
subject." Focus groups will aid in the researcher's understanding of Little Women's identity and the
philosophies surrounding impairments, while textual analysis will aid in the researcher's understanding of
Little Women's context and the ideologies surrounding impairments. When combined, the methodologies
will aid the researcher in gaining a deeper understanding of the film Little Women.

Conclusion

Option feminism criticizes prescriptive feminist viewpoints rather than doing a thorough examination of
shifting social conditions in which the relationship between feminism, femininity, and free choice has
become more complex. This criticism overlooks how feminist ideas have been resurrected in the service of
late capitalism and neoliberal government structures. Feminism helps in the development of individuated
patriarchal feminist subjects who do cultural work vital to the continuation of neoliberal hegemony by failing
to interact objectively with structures that directly influence the social organization of gender identity.

Choice is historically unique in terms of how it is conceptualized and perceived as a lived condition. The
free choice model's hidden assumptions are: (1) people are individual actors and special selves who
consider only their own desires and wishes; (2) people are capable and accountable for meeting their own
needs'. She points out that while economists acknowledge that these stereotypes are troublesome, they
still consider them to be relatively benign. She points out that while these conclusions may be true for adult,
White, male, middle-class American economists, they are not true for many others.

References

Alcott, L.M., 2019. Good wives (Vol. 2).

Ghosh, B. and Bose, B. eds., 2019. Interventions: Feminist Dialogues on Third World Women's Literature
and Film. Routledge.

Graña Rodríguez, J., 2020. Gender Stereotyping in LM Alcott's Little Women And Its 1949 And 1994 Film
Versions.

Liddy, S., Women in the International Film Industry.

Mears, S., 2019. The Buck Stops Here. Film Comment, 55(6), pp.10-10.

Sedgwick, C., 2019. Reclaiming the screen: addressing overlooked women in film and television.