The Gender Bias in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee's novel, To Kill Mockingbird has attracted a lot of controversy and many analyses about its main theme of prejudice and racism. However, the novel also depicts gender bias and stereotypes of the era. Set in the 1930s in the small, southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird reveals the common gender inequality for women that occurred during this time period. In fact, the societal standards for women are best shown by the behaviors and personalities of the female characters in the novel.

In contrast to Alexandra's representation of the pure, southern lady, the main character and narrator of the novel, Jean Louise Finch is a six-year-old girl who often curses and goes by the nickname, Scout. She does not fit into the traditional mold of a young lady and its standards of femininity. Scout's mother passed away when she was very young, and she barely remembers any about her. Without a motherly and feminine role model, Scout has become a tomboy who is always dressed in overalls and muddy shoes. She dislikes wearing dresses and is as rambunctious as her older brother, Jem, and their friend, Dill, with whom she spends most of her time playing outdoors and roughhousing with each other. When the boys get older they begin to exclude Scout, and she is often told that acting like a girl is undesirable. For instance Jem tells her, “Scout, I’m telling you for the last time, shut your trap or go home-I declare to the lord you’re gettin’ more like a girl everyday” in chapter six.

Similarly, Scout's lack of traditional manners and feminine clothing frequently is met with dismay by the ladies of Maycomb. For example in Chapter 24, Aunt Alexandra and her missionary circle had a break in their meeting to have refreshments, Miss Stephanie told Scout, 'you won’t get very far until you start wearing dresses more often.” Likewise, Mrs. Dubose fussed at Scout and exclaimed, 'what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You’ll grow up waiting on tables if somebody doesn’t change your ways.' in Chapter 11 which indicates that being a waitress in not a proper activity for southern lady. In fact, Jem goes on to tell Scout, 'Don’t pay any attention to her, just hold your head high and be a gentleman” as if acting like a man is more valuable than acting like a woman.

While Scout does not fit the stereotypical mold of a southern lady because of her tomboyish behavior and dress, Mayella Ewell is portrayed as unladylike because of her social status and the fact that she has impure feelings for Tom Robinson, the black man who helped her at the house. Mayella is lonely and powerless due to a combination of her gender and her poverty. Like all of the Ewells, she lacks an education and is cut off from respectable white society. However, Harper Lee makes it clear that even though she is not part of the white community, gender and social bias dictate that as a white woman and the oldest child in the family, Mayella is expected to keep the house and raise the younger children.

Mayella is further shamed and separated from the respectable people when Tom Robinson says on the witness stand that Mayella, “reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before...She says what her papa do to her don’t count.' (Chapter 19) When her alcoholic father, Bob Ewell, witnesses Mayella's indecent behavior he becomes furious. Bob forces Mayella to accuse Tom Robinson of raping her in an attempt to maintain his pride and the dignity of the Ewells. In his closing remarks to the courtroom Atticus demonstrates that Mayella does not conform to the gender and societal standards of the time when he says, 'She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.' (Chapter 20)

Although her father probably forced her to accuse Tom Robinson, it is one of the few times that Mayella has access to the common rights of a white Southern lady. In Chapter 18 Mayella says to the men in the courtroom, 'you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’...  you’re all yellow stinkin‘ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you,' she is attacking their masculinity because the gender and social customs require they believe her over a black man. All in all, To Kill Mockingbird addresses not only the subject of racism, but also the topic of gender bias and discrimination in the south during the 1930s. The novel's descriptions of its female characters and the societal standards for women at the time reveal the common gender inequality for women that occurred during this social era. Harper Lee created a powerful and relevant tale that depicts gender bias and stereotypes that we still deal with as a society today.