Femininity In To Kill A Mockingbird

Scout who lives in a male dominated society, soon embraces her identity. Her father, Atticus, and brother Jem, who both live with her impact Scout towards male dominance. Scout feels like she’s being pressured into being someone who she’s not. Later on, Scout soon struggles that wanting to be herself won't be enough and that she doesn’t have to prove to anyone that she’ll act differently towards others. Scout does many masculine activities that make her feel like who she wants to be makes her true identity who she really is.

“I was not so sure,but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hate them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.” Scout also likes fighting with guys. For example, “catching Walter Cunningham in schoolyard gave me some pleasure,but when I was rubbing his nose in dirt Jem came by and told me to stop. ”Scout can be considered at tomboy because she doesn't like to wear dresses,and is always with

Throughout the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee challenges the societal norms of gender roles, within the character “Jean Louise,” also referred to as her tomboy name “Scout.” Scout battles the society-defined roles in many ways throughout the text. Many factors lead to Scout redefining femininity, including Jem and Dill’s coming-of-age dilemma. An exploration of gender roles and inequality throughout the text and this time period will allow one to understand how Scout was able to overcome gender stereotyping.

Scout is considered a tomboy because she does not wear dresses because she can “do nothing in a dress” (Lee 92) so instead she wears overalls or pants. She also goes to Finch’s Landing and starts to cuss around her Uncle Jack; when he asks her does she want to “ Grow up and be a lady,” (Lee 90) she tells him “ Not particularly.”(Lee 90) When she does wear a dress for Aunt Alexandra and the missionary circle; she gets ridiculed because she tells them she wants to grow up

Scout despises the fact that everyone wants her to be a girly girl, and it bothers her because she does not want to wear a dress, and she has fears of growing up as a female, she would rather wear overalls according to Shackelford (3).” She resents the influence of her genteel aunt Alexandra, who loathes dirt and wishes that her niece would play with stoves and tea sets; is disgusted by her hateful, elderly, and bedridden neighbor, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose; and ridicules her first-grade teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, a “peppermint drop” of a pretty, proper young woman” (Holmes). However, her morals and values really show because she has a devotion to her father’s opinion and what he does by taking a stand against the racial society, in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” it states “.. I wondered at the world of women... There was no doubt about it, I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water” (236).

Scout and Jem aren’t necessarily the ideal girl and boy in this time. They were raised differently than most girls and boys of their generation. Scout, growing up with her older brother, acts like a tomboy. She wears overalls, plays with “boy” things, and behaves just like her brother. Her dad (Atticus) doesn’t see a problem with how she acts, but their neighborhood and family members do. She gets told to “act like a lady” constantly, even by her brother. Whereas her brother, Jem, doesn’t get told to behave much differently other than to be a gentlemen. As time goes by and the kids get older, Jem slowly starts to mature and Scout doesn’t like it. In chapter 12 paragraph 7, the book states “‘Baby,’ said Calpurnia, ‘I just can’t help it if Mister

As girls grow in life, they mature and change into women. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Scout, the main character, begins to mature into a woman. In the beginning of the book, she is a tomboy who cannot wait to pick a fistfight with anyone, but at the end, she lowers her fists because her father, Atticus, tells her not to fight. Scout's views of womanhood, influenced by how Aunt Alexandra, Miss Maudie, and Calpurnia act, make her think more about becoming a woman and less of a tomboy.

She is “A tomboy at heart” and acts unladylike despite all the remarks from her aunt Alexandra. Scout spends her days playing outside with her older brother, Jem, and her best friend, Dill. Scout prefers her beloved overalls, "the garments her aunt Alexandra most despised. "(pg. 92)

Kameron Hunting Ms. Pearson English 10C 15 May 2024 A Person is a Person In the 1930s, girls were expected to dress femininely and act kind, nurturing, and polite. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout is trying to find her way through life with help from her father, Atticus, and her brother, Jem. However, Scout does not care what people think and decides to live life her own way. Scout does not fit into the normal gender roles of society because of the clothes she wears, her abnormal behavior, and the constant support of her father. Scout does not fit into the gender roles of the 1930s because of the clothes that she wears.

Scout is a prominent character, especially when how she dresses appears more than once. She sticks out since she is the only girl in the house, at the moment. Scout’s assigned birth gender is female but she dresses like a tomboy which is not normal for their time.

Scout reflects on her relationship her aunt before a christmas dinner, noting how a conversation between Alexandra and Atticus about Scout’s attire was the only point in her life where she had heard her father speak sharply with anyone, “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”. (83) Alexandra has very little knowledge of what Scout enjoys doing, and doesn’t seem to care enough to respect it. One of her missions throughout the novel is to permanently change Scout’s attire from her regular overalls into frilly dresses even if that meant giving up the things she enjoyed doing and substituting them with a life of playing with tiny tea sets and stoves. Through this, Lee is able to show the disconnect between Scout and her aunt’s generations and how sexism can sometimes even originate from other

“We decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys–” (p.170). This was the first example of Aunt Alexandra telling Scout that she needs to be more like a girl. Scout gets really upset by this. She has always had her own style and never been a very girly girl. Scout has always hung out with the boys because of her brother. So when Aunt Alexandra says how she here to be Scout’s feminine influence, Scout gets annoyed. Atticus has always let Scout act the way she wants as long as she is a respectful person. “I do. I guess it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides,” Atticus grinned, “I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried–the ladies’d be interrupting to ask questions.” (p.296). Atticus says this to Scout because

First of all, Scout is more a tomboy than a girl. Boys tend to live by the phrase, “Boys rule. Girls drool.” Scout expresses,” I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.” (45). This quote implies that Scout thinks girl things are bad and boy things are good. She has constantly been taught this. Scout believes she can avoid being a girl by not acting like one. Being a girl to Scout is more about what she does than what she is born with. Another example of Scout being more of a boy is how she reacts to the situation with Walter Cunningham and Miss. Caroline. In the text, Scout states, “Ah-Miss. Caroline? Miss. Caroline, he’s a Cunningham.” (22). The gender role of a girl would usually to sit back and watch everything go down. In Scout’s case, she is outspoken and has no filter. She has to tell Miss. Caroline what everyone else is thinking. It is in this sense and others that Scout challenges the traditional gender roles throughout the

Atticus had to assume both the role of mother and father, which wasn't the best for either of the children. Even Scout realizes this when she says, “... he was trying to do but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to that kind of work.”

How Scout Develops from a Tomboy to a Young Lady in To Kill a Mockingbird