This index compiles tropes that illustrate how gender is used in fiction. Male and female characters are subject to different forms of characterization and they are exploited as plot devices in different ways. One overarching way is the active-male/passive-female dichotomy. Women are judged more by their passive attributes and men by their actions. Within that dynamic is a sub-dynamic in which women's interior world of emotional reactions is expected to exert more of an influence on the actions of others than men's interior world. This index is divided into five sections: