Data scientist David Robinson tracked the proximity of verbs to gender across 100,000 stories. She screams, cries and rejects. He kidnaps, rescues and beats.
I think this paints a somewhat dark picture of gender roles within typical story plots. Women are more likely to be in the role of victims- “she screams”, “she cries”, or “she pleads.” Men tend to be the aggressor: “he kidnaps” or “he beats”. Not all male-oriented terms are negative- many, like “he saves”/”he rescues” are distinctly positive- but almost all are active rather than receptive.
The chart on which types of violence are associated with men and women is predictable stuff: poison from the ladies, beatings from the gentlemen.
It follows on from Julia Silge's look at gender roles and text mining. See also an attempt to do likewise with plot arcs.
