“She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it.”
– Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 20. Atticus tells the jury that Mayella Ewell is also a victim in the Tom Robinson case, poor, kept ignorant, abused by her father and prevented from having a relationship with the single person who was nice to her – black man Tom Robinson. She violated the code by making advances to a black man.