In To Kill a Mockingbird, chapter 24, why does Scout prefer the company of men as opposed to that of women?

Not only does she have to wear a dress for Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle meetings--and we know how much Scout hates dresses--but women make her nervous. She notes at the beginning of her time with them that "ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere" (262). 

At some point, Mrs. Merriweather makes oblique references to how Atticus thought he was doing the right thing, but all he...

Not only does she have to wear a dress for Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle meetings--and we know how much Scout hates dresses--but women make her nervous. She notes at the beginning of her time with them that "ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere" (262). 

At some point, Mrs. Merriweather makes oblique references to how Atticus thought he was doing the right thing, but all he did was "stir 'em up"--them being the black people of the town, and Mrs. Maudie instantly says, "His food doesn't stick going down, does it?" suggesting that at least Atticus could live with himself (and simultaneously suggesting that Mrs. Merriweather is a hypocrite). Scout notices that Aunt Alexandra gives Mrs. Maudie a look of gratitude, which confuses her because the two aren't really close. She doesn't really understand the world of women (266). 

Men, she says, "did not trap you with innocent questions to make of you," and weren't critical unless you said something stupid. She notes that women seemed "to live in faint horror of men," but she liked them, because even when they cussed and drank and such, there was something about them that she "instinctively liked." They weren't hypocrites.