Originally published by Ms. Magazine on March 22, 2021

Editor’s note: Lauren Gunderson’s new play The Catatrophist (now streaming) is a one-person show about her husband, a virologist. A major publication recently ran a scathing review of the play. The review was perceived to be sexist by many in the theater industry. While this piece intentionally does not link to the review in question, below, writer Holly Louise Derr provides a counterargument. 

Overwrought. Difficult. Coyly unstable. Unduly exotic. Cliched. Unseemly.

Where have I heard those words before? I mean, I know they’ve been said to every smart and talented woman who has made art ever, but recently and specifically … Hmm … You’d think I would have made a record of that newspaper. Alas, the Times being what they are, it has slipped my mind.

I keep reading that the pandemic is responsible for that: Quarantine is changing our brains so that we are finding it more difficult to convert short-term memories into long-term ones…

Read more at Ms.