Abstract
Our analysis of thousands of movies and books reveals how these cultural products weave stereotypical gender roles into morality tales and perpetuate gender inequality through storytelling. Using the word embedding techniques, we reveal the constructed emotional dependency of female characters on male characters in stories. We call this narrative structure "Cinderella complex", which assumes that women depend on men in the pursuit of a happy, fulfilling life. Our analysis covers a substantial portion of narratives that shape the modern collective memory, including 7,226 books, 6,087 movie synopses, and 1,109 movie scripts. The "Cinderella complex" is observed to exist widely across periods and contexts, reminding how gender stereotypes are deeply rooted in our society. Our analysis of the words surrounding female and male characters shows that the lives of males are adventure-oriented, whereas the lives of females are romantic-relationship oriented. Finally, we demonstrate the social endorsement of gender stereotypes by showing that gender-stereotypical movies are voted more frequently and rated higher.
Highlights
Throughout history, stories served to entertain and to instruct
After three waves of feminism [38], words like brave and independent are more likely to associate with female roles [39]
The meta-analysis based on 16 U.S public opinion polls (1946–2018) showed that social expectation on the competence and intelligence of females increased over time, but the expectation on the agency of females remained low [26]
Summary
Throughout history, stories served to entertain and to instruct. The functions of stories determine their shapes and fates. Stories are similar to species in many ways, and the social process for communicating and remembering these mind creatures works as fitness functions to evolve their shapes [1,2,3,4]. Dramatic shapes with ups and downs, flat characters, oversimplified causes, all these elements will make a story easier to retell and relate and even become culture memes [3,9]. These elements enhance the spreading of stereotypes broad and far across cultures and periods through storytelling
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