Exploration of Gender Differences in COVID-19 Discourse on Reddit

Abstract: Decades of research on differences in the language of men and women have established postulates about the nature of lexical, topical, and emotional preferences between the two genders, along with their sociological underpinnings. Using a novel dataset of male and female linguistic productions collected from the Reddit discussion platform, we further confirm existing assumptions about gender-linked affective distinctions, and demonstrate that these distinctions are amplified in social media postings involving emotionally-charged discourse related to COVID-19. Our analysis also confirms considerable differences in topical preferences between male and female authors in pandemic-related discussions.