To the Editor:
Re “Did the Mom of Younger Grownup Literature Determine as a Man?,” by Peyton Thomas (Opinion visitor essay, nytimes.com, Dec. 24):
Mr. Thomas argues that Louisa Might Alcott, the writer of “Little Girls,” was trans as a result of she expressed dissatisfaction with being a girl, most popular the corporate of males and used “Lou” as a nickname (quite common again then), amongst different factors.
What Nineteenth-century lady with genius and gumption wouldn’t chafe at her restricted life and lengthy for the broad freedoms of manhood? The insipidity, conventionality and powerlessness of Victorian feminine life drove many a girl insane.
Sigmund Freud thought ladies envied males as a result of males had penises. As we speak we perceive it was the ability and privileges of manhood symbolized by the penis that ladies envied. It’s unhappy that we appear to be going backward by seeing ladies eager for masculine freedoms and benefits as proof that they’re actually males!
Katha Pollitt
New York
The author is a poet, essayist and critic who focuses on political and social points, together with feminism.
To the Editor:
You must belief Louisa Might Alcott, the real-life tomboy Jo March from “Little Girls,” in how she understood herself: “I’m a person’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a girl’s physique.”
That assertion in its frank simplicity defines transgenderism. It’s not about sexual orientation: Transgender individuals will be gay or heterosexual. It’s a couple of spirit of self squeezed into the fallacious vessel.
As a transgender acquaintance as soon as mentioned, it’s like carrying footwear on the fallacious toes and discovering how a lot better it feels if you change the footwear round.
Kathy Groff
Allentown, Pa.
To the Editor:
Louisa Might Alcott did say she was “greater than half-persuaded” that she was a “man’s soul.” When she was then requested why, her reply was this: “‘Nicely, for one factor,’ and the blue-gray eyes sparkled with laughter, ‘as a result of I’ve fallen in love in my life with so many fairly ladies, and by no means as soon as the least little bit with any man.’”
Simply earlier than this alternate, she had described how she used to assume she had the soul of a horse as a result of “as a long-limbed youngster,” she appreciated operating by way of fields. The quote, like different “details” cited by Peyton Thomas out of context, is unconvincing as a critical expression of gender id, relatively than one about sexuality or sexism.
Not like James Barry or Albert Cashier, Louisa Might Alcott continued to reside as a girl when ladies weren’t granted fundamental human rights. This piece perpetuates the pernicious, false concept that supporting trans rights equates to believing that every one ladies naturally “care a lot for ladies’ issues.”
Deanna Daly
Somerville, Mass.
To the Editor:
Whereas I’ve no objection to contemplating that Louisa Might Alcott might have recognized as a person, as Peyton Thomas suggests, I feel there may be one other approach to interpret her writings.
Alcott lived in a time when solely white males had been free. Maybe she was expressing her incapacity to reside the lifetime of a up to date lady, a life that the opposite ladies round her appeared able to embracing. Maybe, had ladies of the time been free to put on pants, journey, smoke, lower their hair, earn a residing exterior the house, not marry, play sports activities, drink whiskey, and extra, she might have been snug being a girl.
As a younger woman studying the entire Alcott books within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, I keep in mind figuring out with Alcott’s sentiments and wishing I had been a boy. However that was not a want to develop into a person, however to have the person’s freedom. Perhaps Alcott wished to be a person, or perhaps being a person was the one approach to get what she actually wished: freedom to be herself.
Roxana Witter
Denver
Brazil’s Riot, and Parallels to Jan. 6
To the Editor:
Re “In Brazil Capital, a Frenzied Mob Storms Congress” (entrance web page, Jan. 9):
If anybody wanted additional proof that the harmful, misguided claims of rigged elections by former President Donald Trump had horrific home and worldwide implications, they want look no additional than the rebellion that just lately befell at Brazil’s authorities places of work.
The parallels to the terrible occasions that occurred on Jan. 6 two years in the past are unmistakable. Each featured a democratically ousted president unwilling to just accept his loss and a subsequent rebellion.
One of many hallmarks of america’ democracy is the peaceable transition of energy between presidents. What occurred on Jan. 6 was horrible and ought to be referred to as out in no delicate phrases.
The rebellion that befell at Brazil’s authorities places of work proved that former President Trump’s harmful technique of denying democratic elections lives on and poses a hazard to our democracy’s survival.
And if we wish to save democracy not solely in america but in addition internationally, we should reject and name out any election denying earlier than it’s too late.
Kiran Bhatia
Brookline, Mass.
A Phrase From a Ghostwriter
To the Editor:
Re “The Ghosts within the Prose” (Weekend Arts, Jan. 6):
Because the co-author of 10 books — for authors starting from well-known people to unknown heroes — I feel your article about ghostwriting misses an necessary level.
There’s a very good motive that co-writers ought to have their names on the covers. As everybody with a byline in in the present day’s paper is aware of, having your identify on one thing you’ve written gives greater than ego gratification and one thing to your mother to clip out. It additionally conveys accountability.
In case your identify is on it and one thing is fallacious, it’s you who will get the blame — a concern that retains you sincere and cautious.
When celebrities faux they’ve written their tales with out assist they could be perpetrating the smallest of lies. However I wish to assume that when authors are sincere and up entrance about having co-authors, it permits the reader slightly extra religion in the remainder of the tales that they, and we, are telling.
Ghosts can’t be seen. Writers ought to be.
Philip Lerman
Madrid
Legislation College Rankings
To the Editor:
Re “After Legislation Faculties Boycott, U.S. Information Will Change Its Influential Rating System” (information article, Jan. 3):
A few years in the past once I coached a university mock trial staff, a coach from one other school requested me the place I had gone to legislation college. I advised him the identify of the college (now generally known as U.C. Faculty of the Legislation, San Francisco) and he remarked that, like his personal college (U.C.L.A.), it was one of many 50 or so legislation faculties within the nation’s prime 20.
His remark underscored the truth that the U.S. Information & World Report legislation faculties rating system hadn’t but cemented itself into the general public’s consciousness because the arbiter of legislation faculties’ price.
The current resolution by the “prime” legislation faculties to disclaim U.S. Information entry to knowledge is a constructive transfer and hopefully portends a future wherein candidates to legislation faculties depend on their very own judgment to choose a faculty to attend, relatively than depend on a phony rating system.
Patrick Mattimore
Pattaya, Thailand
Credit score for Resisting Temptation
To the Editor:
“Give Me Credit score for All of the Dangerous Issues I Didn’t Do,” by Crispin Sartwell (Opinion visitor essay, Dec. 31), makes me want my scale would take this recommendation. Why can’t I lose a pound for each dessert I forgo?
Felicia Nimue Ackerman
Windfall, R.I.
Supply: NY Times
