Set the stage for the sleepy little town of Maycomb in 1933, when gender roles were viewed through a very different lens than they are today. In the story, emphasis is placed on Scout who wants to wear what she wants and act in a way that feels normal to her. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee implements the motif of feminine and masculine gender standards to characterize Maycomb as conservative, and Jem as prejudiced. Maycomb's gender roles are influenced by the societal standards of 1933, therefore the town has more traditional values. These values influence the people of the town, such as Mrs. Dubose, to view Scout as unfeminine. So when Mrs. Dubose expresses her opinion on how she believes Scout should be “in a dress and camisole, [or she’ll] grow up waiting …show more content…
Since the people of Maycomb did not respond well to Scout’s ideals and tried to enforce their own upon her. They attempted to convince Scout that it was commonly thought that everyone “want[s] to grow up to be a lady” (Lee, 90). With the use of a lady is inferred to be dressed like Mrs. Dubose. These attempts to change Scout only resolve her to feel like an outcast. She does “not particularly” (Lee, 90) want to dress just for their approval. Lee’s implementation of the motif, describing the traditional gender roles and the expectation of everyone to follow them, reflects the secluded social standard of the Maycomb. Lee emphasizes the motif of gender roles through Jem’s perception of women, as he thinks that they are overly talkative and apprehensive. He tends to think negatively of feminine traits, finding that “acting [too] much like a girl is mortifying” (Lee, 42). Jem’s opinions depict how he expects Scouts to act according to the societal standards of Maycomb. Jem also has a blurry grasp on how a woman should act, due to the fact that he has mostly grown up without a motherly
“Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's lonely life” (Harper Lee 108). Scout’s Aunt Alexandra comes to live with her the summer Scout is eight, in order to provide a female influence for her. Scout is opposed to many of Aunt Alexandra’s views on how she should behave, and doesn’t want to become a lady. As Scout learns about her expected role in society, she also learns about other woman’s roles, and how women aren’t allowed to do many of the things that men do. Miss Maudie, one of Scout’s role models, isn’t allowed to be on the jury because of her sex. Scout is appaled when she learns this, just as she is when she discovers the many other injustices of the world she lives in. Maycomb is a small, sleepy town in the 1930’s, with very traditional ideas and values. Sexism effects Scout’s future, the women of Maycomb, and how the town is run.
While the women in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird come in a variety of personalities and backgrounds, all of their lives are led by one constricting factor; their gender. Scout's upbringing as a young woman greatly contrasts that of her brother Jem. Jem is educated as a young boy growing into a man while Scout’s journey is taken as a woman. The manacle of womanhood is but a concept if one does not consider the harsh faults and inhibiting limits of men or rather the struggle for “masculinity” that men are similarly constrained. Though she is repeatedly told to have ladylike manners and to dress in more feminine way, Scout mostly denies this norm but is still able to become a young
Gender bias is very common in the corporate world. Throughout history, males have been dominant in the workforce, whereas women have been excluded. Currently, only 4.6 percent of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, women rarely even work outside of the house. In this novel, Harper Lee shows the differences between the roles of males and females, specifically the distinctions between occupations and social values in the 1930s.
In the beginning of the book, Scout is a tomboy. She acts, dresses, and walks like a boy because when she was little her mom died, leaving her in a house with two men, Jem and Atticus. Scout has a lot of masculine influence but no feminine influence. Scout also has a raging temper, a manly trait, which she develops by hanging around boys too much. For example, one day at school, she punches Walter Cunningham for embarrassing her in front of the new teacher, and when she gets home, Atticus lectures her and tells her to control her temper and never to punch anyone ever again. Instead of acting like a girl, she goes hunting, swimming, and running around with boys, in boys clothes. Scout does not want to be a woman. Jem tells Scout, “It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right” (115) as opposed to earlier when he told Scout to stop acting like a girl. Scout gets all offended when he says both of these because she had always wanted to be exactly like Jem, which is why she always acts like a boy and never like a girl. Later in the book she says, “Ladies seem to live in faint horror of men . . . But I liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chew. No matter how delectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively like” (234). Now she likes men because in her opinion they are better and more fun, as opposed to her liking them just because of Jem. Her views on womanhood are based on the women around her, and she does not like the women in Maycomb. In addition, Atticus does not feel in a hurry to make her into a woman, figuring she is young, so she can hunt, play, and get herself dirty. Although, when Aunt Alexandra comes to live with them, it is a different story.
According to “Want to See Pay Discrimination Against Women? Look at the Top” by Bryce Covert, “Male-dominated fields pay nearly $150 more each week than female-dominated ones.” Women all over the world are treated differently because of their gender. This is clearly visible in To Kill a Mockingbird through Scout’s childhood. Scout’s aunt Alexandra encourages her to be calmer and more ladylike, but she doesn’t understand the appeal of being perfect. Throughout the book, Scout questions whether to be polite and refined or to run around with the boys. Atticus, her father tries to let Scout make her own decisions, but Alexandra is set on grooming Scout into the perfect little girl. Women in To Kill a Mockingbird are treated as fragile and sensitive
When Scout was forced to wear a dress because Aunt Alexandra wanted her to be more ladylike, she “...felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on [her], and for the second time in [her] life [she] thought of running away. Immediately” (Lee 182). Scout was a tomboy since she lived with her father and brother; dresses and girly things annoyed her. Her inner self was contained in the dress, and she wanted out. When Aunt Alexandra was hosting a church fundraising tea, Miss Maudie asked Scout where her britches were. Scout responded by saying, ‘‘Under my dress’” (Lee 307). By wearing her overalls under her dress, she appears ladylike since everyone wants her to, but is still the tomboy she always wants to be. Scout has matured to realize what’s best for her and the people around her. She realized the social normalities of Maycomb and knew what others thought of her. Without this internal conflict, Scout would have disregarded other people’s opinions and just do what was right in her mind. Scout’s internal conflicts transformed her to be her own person while taking others’ opinions into
To begin with, Scout Finch is a Tomboy. Scout enjoys climbing tree’s, getting down and dirty on the ground, or running around with friends. There were many issues with this, as prejudice dominated the minds of people in the south in this century, most expected femininity of a woman. For example, Aunt Alexandra constantly pesters Scout about wearing dresses, as illustrated by the following quote: “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I couldn't do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants” (Lee 85-86). Aunt Alexandra believed Scout could never be a lady if she didn’t dress like one, but Scout refused to because she could not continue her daily activities in a dress. Another example is when Jack Finch (Scouts Uncle) says: “You’re also growing out of your pants a little” (Lee 105). This is meant to say that Scout should now stop wearing her pants and begin dressing like a woman, and wearing dresses and skirts. Many of Scout’s relatives and close friends expected more femininity out of her, but she was not fully up to the task, being a Tomboy.
Maycomb County serves as an important backdrop to central issues which plagued early 20th century southern America: sexism, racism, and social class conflict. Prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s, women had to follow strict gender roles. Scout is a prime example of a female child struggling to fit the roles placed upon her by not only males in society, but women too. The moment Aunt Alexandra enters Maycomb, she places it upon herself to mould young Scout and Jem into their societal roles. Scout especially suffers a great deal of criticism and pressure from her Aunt to be the stereotypical girl.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch represents a young southern tomboy who strives to find her identity. The adults in her town of Maycomb...
Unban the Truth What does killing a mockingbird mean? To many who have not had the pleasure of reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, that is just a bird. To many more who have, killing a mockingbird means preying on the helpless and the good. No great story was ever without provocative topics.
In most countries, women only earn between 60 and 75% of men’s wages, for the same work. Sexism is still a problem in today’s society, but it has improved since Scout’s generation in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Scout believes from an early age that girls aren’t good, and that she can avoid the judgement that comes with being a girl by not acting like one. Being a girl for Scout is less a matter of what she's born with and more a matter of what she does. Scout’s elders influence her perception of womanhood by putting preconceived sexist views in her head. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee shows the reader how all women are expected to act lady like and be proper through the actions of Mrs. Dubose, Jem, and Atticus.
Sexism is not as common a topic in comparison to racism, but does play a role in the development of the novel. This type of discrimination is expressed towards women from men and women alike. Men feel compelled to protect women from unsightly things, (Lee 221), and the women in Maycomb have the mind set that, to be a lady, they must conform to society's expectations of them. They believe they must dress, act, and speak a certain way to appease the community. Aunt Alexandra is a big believer in acting the way society expects her to and attempts to impose these values on her niece, Scout, who becomes mortified, as she has always been a tomboy and prefers spending time in the dirt. “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my [Scout's] attire. She said I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed ...
In every society, the difference between genders leads to different roles and lifestyles depending on the culture of each society. While there may be similarities between gender roles among many societies, the explanations tend to be different from culture to culture. The society depicted in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is reminiscent of an Ancient Greek or Roman society, where the men are considered to be strong warriors and breadwinners, and the women are looked at as objects, whose main duty is to tend to the children and obey the husband without a question. While at first glance, the Shakespearean play Tempest seems different from Achebe’s book, in reality, similar themes lie at its center, including the abuse of women and male power dominating throughout the play. While the only female character is a young girl, who is a puppet of his father’s will, she has courage to be honest and to stand up against her father on more than one occasion, exhibiting an innate female power like Ekwefi in Things Fall Apart. Hence these two works, while written three hundred years apart and showing two societies at the opposite ends of colonization, illustrate that the gap between them is not as big as one would think when it comes to society’s gender roles.
Even though many social forces impact Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, gender impacts Scout the greatest. It affects her in how other people treat her. Unexpectedly, Aunt Alexandra shows up at the Finch household, and Scout asks why she had just shown up. Aunt Alexandra replies, “We decided that it would be good for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys” (127). After Alexandra says this, Scout becomes puzzled because she does not think she needs a “feminine influence”. But, as she becomes older she is expected to act more lady like. Since she is a girl, she is expected to act prim and proper. Her being raised around men is acting against these stereotypes. Certainly, it is obvious that boys are more daring than girls. So while Jem and Dill want to get a sneak peak inside of Boo Radley’s house, Scout gets a little apprehensive. Jem shouts out, “Scout I’m telling you for the last time shut your trap or go home. I declare to the lord you’re getting more like a girl every day,” (51-52). After Jem said this, she decides she has no option but to join them. She does...
Gender Roles and Feminism in Killing a Mockingbird. When the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee, the Southern United States was still clinging tightly to traditional values. Southern societies pressured men to behave as gentlemen, and women were expected to be polite and wear dresses. These stringent gender roles were adhered to in small southern towns because they were isolated from the more progressive attitudes in other areas of the United States.