Gender Discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 532 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2019/03/28 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Discrimination Essay Gender Discrimination Essay To Kill a Mockingbird Essay Did you like this example? Have you ever been blocked from doing something because of things you couldnt control? In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, gender is a big factor in how Scout lives her life. In Scouts family there is characters that shows expectations to how a girl is supposed to act. Harper Lee uses characters Scout, Jem, and other members of her family to show gender barriers and stereotypes. In the beginning of the novel, you already see Scout start to have bad opinions about being a girl. In this instance, the doubts come from Jem. Scout says, I was not sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, thats why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with (Lee 41). Scout didnt want to be a girl because her brother told it as if it was bad to be one. She didnt want to play with other girls because of what shed been taught, and wanted to hang out with her brother. Jem took things that could be bad qualities about a person, and turned it into traits of a girl which deterred Scout from wanting to act like one, creating a stereotype that she believed. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Gender Discrimination in To Kill a Mockingbird" essay for you Create order Farther into the book, Jem was growing and started to become distant with Scout, in a sudden matter. He starts bossing Scout around. She says, After one altercation when Jem hollered, Its time you started bein a girl and acting right! I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia (Lee 115). Scout didnt like being told what to do, especially from her brother. She felt she was already acting right. Being a girl was something she had learned was not a good thing, so Jem telling her to be one, was hurtful to her. However, a couple paragraphs later Scout says, She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there wassome skill involved in being a girl (Lee 115-116). This is the first time we see Scout have a positive outlook on being a girl. By watching someone work that she viewed as a hard-working girl, she changed her mind slightly regarding her views. Calpurnia is portrayed as a strong woman that has a great effect on how Scout feels, even tho ugh Calpurnia is simply doing housework. Later in the book, Scout finds out about some barriers that women face. Her dad tells her, For one thing, Miss Maudie cant serve on a jury because shes a woman- (Lee 296). She responds to this with, You mean women in Alabama cant-? I was indignant. Scout had previously been told what she could and could not do, but she always had choices. They were never rules that she had to follow, they were merely suggestions. For the first time, Scout was presented with something she couldnt have control over. She was always discriminated against for her gender, but never to this extent. Her father told her something that she probably would never have considered to be possible. Through this, Scout meets her first solid barrier.