Prejudice in Tkam

It Effects Everyone Prejudice destroys families, communities, and countries. In the story, To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, Jem and Scout face many extremely prejudice folk in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. They see the prejudices first hand because of the controversial trial that their father, Atticus Finch, was appointed to, involving a black man named Tom Robinson. Tom being African American resulted in an unfair trial because racism, however, as Lee demonstrates, prejudice and intolerance is not all about racism, but also results in social status and gender inequality. Lee shows how people are discriminated against because of their gender. After the trial had finished, Scout and Jem discuss the jury and why some town folk were excluded from it when Atticus says that, “Miss Maudie can’t serve on a jury because she’s a woman” (296) that “it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s” (296). By Atticus saying this, it is implied that many of the people in the South think that the women should be protected and sheltered. Men think women are too delicate, and that trials like Tom’s are too graphic and nasty for most women to handle. Additionally, when Jem is making fun of Scout for not playing with Dill and himself in the tree house during the summer, Scout thinks, “I was not sure, but Jem told me that I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one, I could off and find some to play with” (54). Jem saying this makes Scout realize what most boys think of girls. Jem considers girls as outcasts and that all girls should stick together with their own kind, not with boys. Miss Maudie and Scout are just some examples that show the gender prejudices against women. Although many prejudices involve racism, there are also many prejudices against the lower class. When Jem is explaining the mixed children after discussing about Dolphus Raymond and why