To Kill a Mockingbird: Women and Femininity Harper Lee wrote, “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the 1960's, but based the best-seller on the 1930's. Lee applied that period where most traditional values were still taken used. In the southern parts of the United States, society had made it ’normal’ for men to be gentlemen and ladies are supposedly polite and feminine. Harper Lee decided the book should be needed to be written from the perspective of a young girl who lived in a small town called Maycomb. The book is about Jean Louise Finch, who is called Scout throughout the story. Scout is a tomboy, she isn’t the typical girl in her town, in the way that she doesn’t wear dresses and she often starts fights. Lee shows how Scout grows up using factors such as her attitude, her brother, and the influence the other …show more content…
During a time when Scout is talking to Miss Maudie, who lives across the street, about her beliefs. She talked about herself, a Baptist, and Mr Radley, a foot-washing Baptist. “Thing is, foot-washers think women are a sin by definition. They take the bible literally, you know” (Lee 59). When Miss Maudie was saying this, she was talking about how some people take words that are written in the bible and use them literally. She was referring to Mr Radley, the man that lived across the street when she said ‘foot-washers’. At the very beginning of the book, before anything really was started, Scout was explaining what happened to some boys in Maycomb. They were charged for many things, including “... and using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female” (Lee 12). This shows the difference in when men are allowed to do and say compared to women. It was considered to a crime to say something crude in the midst of a female during that time, that's how much control they had over women back