Response to "Composing as a Woman"

Getting Ready to Read

            Gender differences in classrooms never seemed like an issue for me growing up. Occasionally it did seem as if male teachers were harder on male students’ behaviors in class, but rarely, if ever, would it affect a student.

            In Elizabeth Flynn’s article “Composing as a Woman”, Flynn explains that for a long time writing has always been from a male perspective. She argues that both perspectives should be equally shown and presents us with both sides in this article from a hopefully non-female and non-male perspective.

            This article is similar to Wardle’s article in that both authors are discussing identity. Flynn seems to discuss the identity of the work itself; how it’s presented and whom it is supposed to be presented to. It also relates a little to Wardle’s idea of authority when Flynn states that most literature is/was directed towards males from males, males being the authority in literature here.

            When Flynn says, “Women’s perspectives have been suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge. Difference is erased in a desire to universalize”, she means that until the want to universalize, join gendered writing together as one, not as male writing and female, all the female writing has been put aside because it does not seem ‘authoritative’ or note-worthy as a males work would be. The silencing of women’s voices relates to the marginalization of other minorities in that they both are actions taken to decrease the authority of a specific group.