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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wonder if Kolker wrote the piece overcompensating for the fact that he got the story tip from Dorland, so tried to give some slant to Larson, also.  I don't really believe that he understood Dorland the way we do and wrote the story that way, anyway.  Thinking it's more probable that he didn't read all the legal filings and also that his story may have gotten changed around a bit in editing (he suggests it did but I don't know which side it might have favored more in the original draft form).  I suspect that he did maybe see things from both sides.  He does after all write stories about female harassment etc. that misogynists probably wouldn't bother spending their time on, I don't personally think he's a misogynist.[/quote]

Characterizing women who stand up for themselves as needy, extra, or emotional is not a good look in 2021.[/quote]

I agree but I think we are far from this type of misogyny going away.

One of the take-aways I have from this whole thing is that we are still stuck in the misogynist viewpoint that there are "good" women and "bad" women. The 2021 spin on this is that "good" women deserve to be treated fairly (like a man!) and that "bad" women may be treated in a sexist way because we still live in a sexist culture that believes feminine traits are inherently bad.

So Dorland is portrayed as needy specifically because she is making an emotional claim. She is far less concerned with the theft of intellectual property that she might have profited off of than she is in simply having been treated poorly. She is upset over the abuse of her friendship. She is saying that Larson hurt her, and she wants recompense for being hurt. Since emotionality is considered (falsely) a feminine trait, Kolker feels comfortable portraying it as needy and cloying.

But Larson's approach to the conflict is based in a professional interest. She is a writer; she wrote something. She isn't personally hurt by Dorland's actions. Instead, she is alleging that Dorland has deprived her of income, has interfered with her career. Since we still treat economic interests and work as "masculine" concepts, Kolker portrays Larson as rational, calm, independent.

But of course, if you read the court documents, you can see why these dichotomies are inaccurate. Not only offensive, but wrong. Though her claim is based in an emotional harm, Dorland's actions are carefully thought out and executed. Whether she is writing to Larson directly or reaching out to Boston Book Festival or Grubstreet or another professional organization, her communications are clear, with remarkably little sentiment. She is honest that her interest is an emotional one, but she is rational about describing that emotion and asking for generally very basic things.

Meanwhile, the emails and texts between the CMs show Larson to be incredibly emotional, seemingly blinded by her dislike of Dorland. The CMs commentary about Dorland is petty, small-minded, bitter, and untempered by reason. You might expect at some point for someone to say "well, she did donate a kidney to a stranger and that's a laudable thing." But they can't even manage that level of objectivity. And it's not limited to the women on these threads -- the men are largely as bad, with a couple small exceptions.

Kolker (and Grubstreet, and Gay and Rosner and Twitter at large) decided Dorland was the wrong kind of woman. A woman doing feminine things, like making sacrifices, caring about people, nurturing relationships, communicating. And Larson was the right kind of woman, the one acting like Salinger or Hemingway or any of the man male writers who have used and abused their personal relationships in the name of their art.[/quote]

Great, thoughtful analysis.[/quote]

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