ComPOSING As A...Man?

I have so much to say about “Composing as a Woman,” but I am too often afraid that what I have to say comes from my own ignorance of the subject. The problem then is how can I, as a woman, and also as a critical thinker, be so ignorant to my own subjection to male dominance?
I’ll start by saying that my first experience with Composition Studies was not a good one. I didn’t want a pat on the back for everything I laid on the paper. “Very Original!” “Unique Leah!” “You have some great ideas!” In my world, original, unique, and great ideas are not incredibly successful. Yesterday on NPR, a famous author and speech critic commented on the current battle between Obama and Clinton. He said,’ I’ve studied thousands of presidential speeches and I have not yet found one that is truly original.’ Next, I visit both candidates’ official website and find that the two have exactly the same platform with no proof that one is truly different from the other. Then, I turn on the television for a bit of mindless self indulgence, and that is exactly what I get. On one channel there is Big Brother, strangers forced to live in the same house and compete for money, on another channel there is a Shot at Love, strangers forced to live in the same house and compete for love, same channel, a spin-off of Shot at Love, loser contestant hosting new show where strangers are forced to live in a house and compete for love. Then, turn on the news or open a newspaper and it is all the same. Same talk. Same stories.
Taking a different look, I can remember attempting to conduct a feminist read of several texts for another comp studies class. I read, attempted to critique, but found myself saying “Oh, so that’s how older women feel,” or “Oh, so that’s how wealthy, poor, pretty, foreign, girls feel.” Different representations of women only broadened my own construction of what it means to be a woman. I didn’t ask “Why?” the author chose to have them feel or act a certain way; I assumed there was more to being a woman than my own experiences had shown me. It seemed pointless for me to look at the “why” for women when no one was asking me to look at the “why” for men. So, instead I looked at ethnicity, race, and socio-economic differences. It is this type of reading that makes me now think that I have had what Flynn might call a ‘male learning experience’ (Questions to “why a female would have this male experience” I cannot answer). I often do not attempt to attach to a group. My writing and critiquing is usually aimed at differentiating me from any particular group. For instance, when I took a critical look at any female character in order to make a feminist critique, I never fully associated with that character. I’ve never argued on the grounds that “that’s not what it means to be a woman” or that’s “men’s perspective of women.” Furthermore, I quite like the language that I’ve been taught to create and respond to. If it is ‘men’s language’ then I can only conclude that I have always been intensely attracted to men : P (sorry, that’s a joke). Seriously though, Flynn distinguishes between male and female ways of knowing saying that men are mostly associated with “thinking” and women with “emotions;” again, this is another point where I relate mostly to the male way of knowing. I am often skeptical of emotions and always thinking in abstract and impersonal ways.
Is there any relation between the non-critical way I was introduced to Comp studies and my current non-critical eye toward gender politics? Did the excessive pats on the back from my Composition Mothers lead me away from "women's knowledge" and toward a more abstract critique of composition that shed all my associations with the "personal," including what it means for ME to be a woman? Am I a woman reading as a man reading as a man? Do I read as a MAN to AVOID reading as a WOMAN, since I despised what I saw as a motherly composition/reading of texts in my earlier years of composition studies?
Despite this lengthy analysis of my masculine side, for our class project I am attempting to make a type of feminist critique. I will look at women’s gossip as a response to a male owned language. WISH ME LUCK!