To End Stereotypical Ideas of Femininity
Living the life of a woman is not as easy as it seems. Everyone often expects a woman to be dependent, passive, or elegant. More so, people expect young girls to stay at home, indulging themselves with books, or playing with other girls, rather than sports. Not only that, women before the 1940’s barely had rights. Females did not have the right to vote or to work in certain jobs, like law or medicine before the mid 1900’s. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows light towards the issue of sexism and gender bias. To Kill A Mockingbird somewhat displays these issues through Atticus, when he explains to Scout why Miss Maudie could not work on a jury; through Scout herself, when she detests the idea of being a “girl”; and through Jem, when he rants about Scout being such a girl. The issue of both sexism and gender bias manifests itself through the explanation of Atticus Finch of why females were not allowed to have certain jobs. After being questioned by Scout, Atticus explains to her why women could not have a job on a jury. “ I guess it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s,” said Atticus (Lee, Chapter 23). While this must contain some truth to it, every woman is different. A
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“I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with,” explains Scout in Chapter 4 of To Kill A Mockingbird. Once again, the idea of girls being all the same comes up. Not only does Jem mention it, he mentions it in a negative way. Numerous of times had Jem stated femininity in a bitter way in To Kill A Mockingbird, which made Scout despise her gender even more. Like some people, he looked at females with the stereotype that girls should are too imaginative or easily