To Kill A Mockingbird Role Of Women In The 1930s Essay

Navigating Traditional Female Gender Roles in To Kill a Mockingbird In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores how forcing traditional gender roles onto young children can cause rebellion, while not forcing those roles gives them the freedom to choose to follow traditional gender roles when they wish to. Through the characterization of Scout’s relationships with three important adults in her life--Aunt Alexandra, Atticus and Boo Radley--we see how a young girl responds to the pressures of traditional gender roles. Aunt Alexandra insists that Scout follows traditional female gender roles, which causes her to rebel. Aunt Alexandra is a very traditional middle aged women who feels Scout needs some guidance, especially about Scout’s appearance and what she wears.

Throughout the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the main characters, Scout, is impacted by sexism from her family, peers, and community. The book is set in the 1930’s when women were definitely not thought of as equal. There were certain social rules that girls should follow and the ways that society told them to act. The scout is a character that is impacted by sexism throughout the story. She is a young girl that changes because of the oppression that is placed on her by her family and peers. The character Scout is affected by sexism, which Harper Lee uses to develop the reader’s perception of Scout from indecisive and confined to determined, criticized, and conflicted and finally to confident, conflicted, and decisive.

As Scout gets a little older, she soon realizes that she will have to start acting like a lady. She begins to understand why Aunt Alexandra wants her to act the way that she does. She comes to understand her Aunt and believes there is something interesting in learning how to be a lady. She most realizes this when Jem and Dill go swimming and she couldn't go because they are swimming nude. Aunt Alexandra decides to invite the missionary Ladies for a tea party to discuss the current events in the town of Maycomb (their hometown). Aunt Alexandra dresses Scout up in a dress

Why do people want to change the way we live our life? I don’t fit in, so what? In the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Lee uses characterization and tone in order to convey the idea that in society every gender has to follow their code of conduct, consequently it restricts people from being themselves in order to fit in.

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

If the book had taken place in today’s times as opposed to the 1930’s scouts life would be different. First of all, throughout the book she struggles with being a lady or being “Lady-like”. “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches” (Lee, Page 108). She is told to act like a lady would and wear dresses even though she does not want to. If this were now, she would have less pressure to wear dresses and act ladylike. Nowadays young girls wear dresses less often and there is less of a “Girls have to wear dresses” stereotype.

Scout does not conform to the typical standards of southern girls in the 1930’s: she does not act like a lady, gets in fights, and curses. Scout especially hates dresses. She loves her overalls, and will do anything to avoid wearing a dress. At one point, Scout actually considers running away from her family: “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately” (Lee 182). Scout harbors so much hatred towards the stereotypical feminine attire that she contemplates running away. This quote demonstrates the level of distaste she truly has for dresses, and the overall confines of femininity. Scout persistently defies gender roles and acts differently from the conventional woman. This defines Scout’s personality and shapes her adventures throughout the entirety of the

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.

Unfair treatment makes discrimination evident. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes place when The Great Depression occurred during the 1930’s in an Alabama small town called “Maycomb”. To Kill a Mockingbird is written in the perspective of a little girl by the name of Jean Louise Finch (Scout finch) who is a stubborn, impulsive and outspoken little girl who throughout the novel gains maturity, becomes more observant, and understanding through life alongside her father. Harper Lee’s award winning novel is focused around the social, gender, and racial discrimination and, the affect it has on the people of Maycomb.

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. Harper Lee documents the life of one young girl growing up in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Jean Louise Finch, also known as "Scout," is a young girl searching for her identity. Scout, a young tomboy, is pressured by adults who insist she should conform to the

Sophisticated and mature, Alexandra does her part to follow the rules as she “embodies the rules and customs of the adult world”[Lee 140]. It is not surprising to know she demands the maintenance of the Finch reputation. To do so, Aunt Alexandra forces Scout to do something she is not happy with. Scout’s tomboyish nature goes against what Aunt Alexandra deems to be ladylike, and forces Scout to wear a dress. Alexandra also feels the need to make sure Scouts manners are in check and starts to apply the pressures of being female, “(Scout) carefully picked up the tray and watched (herself) walk to Mrs. Merriweather.

Aunt Alexandra, however, one day arrived at the Finch house to live with them and help Atticus parent the children, especially Scout. Although Scout was more of a tomboy, Alexandra visioned Scout “playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave [Scout] when [she] was born”, all of which are very feministic traits (Lee 108). Scout was completely opposite of these wishes and traits Alexandra, along with many other proper women of Maycomb, expected of her. However, at the tea party, Scout took it upon herself to do her best to show how well Alexandra had been instilling those traits into her to the other women, even though it was extremely difficult and pressuring. Scout wanted to please the women to show them how great Alexandra is at raising young girls and also to prove that Atticus was a successful parent despite the rough times his family had been going through with his job.

Being a woman in the 1930s was rough. They were viewed as frail and dumb, and also expected to act and do the same as most men do. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is told from the perspective of a growing young girl named Scout, taking place during the Depression. Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer with high moral expectations. Scout spends much of her time with her friend Dill and her brother Jem, where she struggles to be accepted and fit in.

Scout doesn't have much interest in stereotypical lady customs which includes dolls and dresses causing her tomboyish nature to incite her Aunt Alexandra to question the way Atticus raises his children. When Alexandra stays with the Finch family, she attempts to make a proper little girl out of Scout, who takes Alexandra's crusade against her pants as also against her freedom. Scout assumes that being a lady-in-training means abandoning all the activities she enjoyed doing and replacing them with what others expect her to do. She is the epitome of what a lady in that era should not be but if Scout was a proper lady, we would not have seen her development in maturity when she 'agrees' to Alexandra's views and when she complies to stop resorting to fights as it is not lady like or mature. Scout's has the idea that "Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by night fall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum" (pg1). Scout characterises women giving the reader a vivid image of how a proper lady lived. This contrast accentuates what a respectable lady was and Scout's tomboyish nature due to only living with a brother and father. While Scout doesn't ever renounce her tomboyish ways; she does come to recognize that being a lady has some value. Alexandra gathers her calmness after hearing Atticus's news of the death of Tom Robinson. To which even Scout admits that "After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I"

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is an ideal display of feminism that takes place during the period of depression in the south. It portrayed the two kinds of women found in the south during this time, the women who were pro the feminist movement, and the average Southern women. Sadly some women mistakenly rebelled against the ideals of society, by just being themselves. Men and women were to conduct themselves as ladies and gentlemen, were men were expected to dress in suit and ties and women were expected to wear dresses and be courteous. Since southern towns were so sheltered from the liberal views of the rest of the world they had no chose but to abide by these gender roles.