Scout faces so many issues in the duration of the novel, but one of the most lingering for her is the question of what it means to "be a lady." Scout is a tomboy. Sometimes her brother criticizes her for "acting like a girl," other times he complains that she's not girlish enough. Dill wants to marry her, but that doesn't mean he wants to spend time with her. Many of the boys at school are intimidated by her physical strength, yet she is told she must learn to handle herself in a ladylike way. Oddly enough, the women in her life impose more rigid requirements on her than the men do. Scout's tomboyishness drives Aunt Alexandra to distraction; Miss Caroline sees Scout's outspokenness and honesty as impertinence. Ironically, the person she most wants to please — Atticus — is least concerned about her acting in a certain way. In fact she tells Jem, "'I asked him [Atticus] if I was a problem and he said not much of one, at most one he could always figure out, and not to worry my head a second about botherin' him.'" In the end, though, when she explains why the sheriff can't charge Boo with Bob Ewell's murder, she's become the kind of person who makes her father very, very proud.
The other lesson that Scout is truly able to incorporate into her worldview is the necessity of walking in someone else's shoes. Atticus begins teaching her the importance of looking at things from the other person's point of view very early in the story. He points out her own failings in this area and demonstrates his point in his own interactions with other people. At the end of the story, Scout can put herself in Boo Radley's shoes, the person she's feared most throughout the story.
