Jem often uses the male superiority stereotype against Scout when he does not want her included, or when he wishes to quell his feelings of guilt.
In Chapter 4 of To Kill a Mockingbird as Jem, Dill, and Scout begin their new dramas during the summer, Atticus watches them one day. Noticing scissors and that Jem has been tearing a newspaper, he asks if the skit has anything to do with the Radleys and warns Jem...
Jem often uses the male superiority stereotype against Scout when he does not want her included, or when he wishes to quell his feelings of guilt.
In Chapter 4 of To Kill a Mockingbird as Jem, Dill, and Scout begin their new dramas during the summer, Atticus watches them one day. Noticing scissors and that Jem has been tearing a newspaper, he asks if the skit has anything to do with the Radleys and warns Jem against creating dramas about these neighbors.
Now worried that they can no longer dramatize the tale of Boo Radley, Dill asks Jem if they can play any more. "Atticus didn't say we couldn't," Jem notes. But Scout is not so certain about the situation. When she expresses her feelings, Jem tells her she is
... being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other girls always hated them so....
Further, Jem tells Scout that if she begins to behave like a girl, she needs to go somewhere else to play.
In Chapter 5 Atticus again scolds Jem, whom he catches in the act of holding a fishing pole with a note on it that he plans to put on the Radley windowsill. Atticus tells Jem and the others to "stop this nonsense, every one of you." So the children halt their pursuit of communication with Boo. But on Dill's last day in Maycomb, Jem and he begin to walk down their street. Scout protests that they are not to go near the Radleys; Jem dismisses her in a "sweet" voice: "You don't have to come along, Angel May." His ridicule is a disguise for his knowing that he should not do what he is going to do. Then, when she realizes that the boys are going to approach the Radley house in the dark, Scout protests again.
"Scout, I'm tell' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home--I declare...you're gettin' more like a girl every day!" (Ch. 6)
Again, Jem excuses his behavior by accusing Scout of just being a frightened girl as he tries to delude her about what he and Dill are going to do as well as ease his own conscience.
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