They found that male characters are four times as likely to be found in literature than female characters, though this difference shrinks when looking at only books by women authors. Mayank Kejriwal, the research lead on this project, noted that “Gender bias is very real, and when we see females four times less in literature, it has a subliminal impact on people consuming the culture.” They also noted that female characters were associated with adjectives like “‘weak,’ ‘amiable,’ ‘pretty’,” while male characters were described with words like “‘leadership,’ ‘power,’ ‘strength’ and ‘politics.’” You can find out more about the study at the USC Viterbi website, or you can read the study in full. Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.
