To Kill a Mockingbird book cover

The book includes many other themes besides the glaring racial struggles portrayed in the film. While the film chooses to focus primarily on issues related to racism and the controversy of those stereotypes, the book addresses several other issues such as gender roles.

In the book, Scout is being ushered into the gender role associated with a southern lady. She is very hesitant to assume this role and conform to what society expects of her as she grows up. Up to this point in her life, Scout has had very few female role models as her mother passed away and she spends most of her time with her brother, Jem. She does have Calpurnia, who looks after the children while their father is at work, but there is a comparative loss of women that Scout can look up to and follow. This no doubt contributes to her hesitancy to step into those female roles that society expects her to conform to. She isn’t ready to leave her tomboy tendencies behind and the process is made much harder by the fact she doesn’t have a strong woman in her life that she can look to for guidance through these changes. Her reluctance to accept these roles she’s expected to step into is demonstrated in chapter fourteen of the book when she describes the dress she’s wearing as “the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary” (Lee 182). This moment helps to describe her dislike of the idea of dresses compared to her usual overalls.

The film, however, glances over this issue of Scout’s struggle with gender identity throughout this story. It does mention it briefly, showing Scout wearing a dress—possibly for the first time at this point in her life—as she gets ready for her first day of school. It is inconsistent, though, as it seems that “until this scene, there has been little indication that Scout strongly dislikes wearing dresses, let alone has fears of growing up as a female” (Shackleford 103). The film almost entirely ignores Scout’s gender identity struggles and fears of becoming a woman, favoring instead to focus on the racism aspect of the story.

This isn’t totally unwarranted, though, as issues revolving around racism and prejudice were more prevalent when the movie came out than the issues of gender roles and Scout being afraid of the idea of growing up and having to become a southern lady. At the time the film was released, racism was more of a hot topic, while gender roles—especially when dealing with women—wasn’t as pressing an issue for the times. People were more concerned with issues of race and the controversy that began to build as the idea of equality began to be discussed.