Who Is Skeeter Phelan In The Help

Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan is a main character in Kathryn Stockett’s novel, The Help. Skeeter is a wealthy white woman who has just graduated from college, as opposed to the rest of her friends who did not finish college and instead got married. She is not beautiful as per society’s standards; instead of being petite and feminine, she is very tall, with pale, unruly hair and an awkward disposition. Her features are cause for trouble in her developing years; boys will not ask her to dances and her mother spends most of her life trying to make her daughter beautiful and seen as potential wife material. Her mother’s obsession with her physical appearance strains their relationship, and instead Skeeter becomes who she is because of her maid, Constantine.

According to lecture, Gender Schema Theory is a theory that explains how people get their gendered roles in the society that they live in, and how they transmit these roles onto others in their culture (N. Salahuddin, Becoming Gendered: Infancy and Childhood, September 25th, 2015). In Skeeter’s society, women are expected to be demure, petite housewives with no discernible skills other than having babies or playing bridge. Men are supposed to be the ones who get a college education and then jobs to provide for his wife and children. In her society’s schema of women, they are mainly expected to be beautiful, something that Skeeter is not despite her mother’s several attempts at making her so. This gives Skeeter a high sense of awareness of what she looks like; in lecture, this is described as the ‘self’ and is negative on developing children (N. Salahuddin, Becoming Gendered: Infancy and Childhood, September 25th, 2015). Since Skeeter’s appearance does not fit into the society’s gender schema, she often feels excluded, especially as all her friends are married and having babies. In lecture, this could be summed as peer rejection (N. Salahuddin, Becoming Gendered: Infancy and Childhood, September 25th, 2015). However, through her caring upbringing by her maid, Constantine, Skeeter learns to look outside the gendered schemas of society, and chooses to be who she feels is the best version of herself, even if it is different. Skeeter already sees herself as fitting outside society’s schema of being a woman, thus she does not feel pressured to conform to the other parts of the schema, such as being dainty or not