Women In To Kill A Mockingbird

Perfect Expectations In the 1930s, women in the American South were expected to be perfect ladies. They were supposed to be flirtatious, innocent, and submissive housewives.The men in charge set these societal expectations for women both in reality and Harper Lee’s classic novel about the period, To Kill a Mockingbird. However, in her novel, Lee does not make the female characters abide by these unspoken rules. Harper Lee portrays the women of To Kill a Mockingbird as human beings to show that perfect Southern belles did not exist. This is especially true in regards to her characters Maudie Atkinson, Stephanie Crawford, and Calpurnia.
Miss Maudie Atkinson is a trustworthy and forthcoming neighbor of the protagonist, Scout Finch. To elaborate,
To illustrate, while speaking with Miss Maudie, Scout thinks to herself, “she [Miss Maudie] did not go about the neighborhood doing good, as did Miss Stephanie Crawford. But… no one with a grain of sense trusted Miss Stephanie” (Lee 59). Miss Stephanie appears to be a perfect lady who performs good deeds around her place of residence. In spite of this, Harper Lee gives her a fatal flaw that distinguishes her from that ideal: an unfiltered mouth. Similarly, after the trial, Miss Stephanie approaches the children (who were not supposed to be there) and Scout observes that, “Miss Stephanie’s nose quivered with curiosity. She wanted to know who all gave us permission to go to court” (Lee 287). Miss Stephanie also exhibits another stereotypical flaw in gossips: untamed curiosity. In the 1930s reality and To Kill a Mockingbird, women were taught from a young age to accept the information they were given and not ask for more. Miss Stephanie, though, cannot help herself— she wants to know and understand the people of Maycomb. Although on the surface a perfect Southern lady, Miss Stephanie Crawford’s predominant characteristics make her anything
Like Miss Maudie, they could have been unconventional neighbors who exuded acceptance and knowledge. They could have been Stephanie Crawford (an insufferable gossip with bounds of curiosity) or like Calpurnia (a wise housekeeper with a secret double life). The women of the 1930s were put under an arbitrary label, but they did not necessarily follow it. As Harper Lee proves in her novel, every woman was a unique individual —not a cardboard cutout of an ideal— an idea that can be applied to women throughout