bais yakov – kol hakavod to you. A lot of people upon seeing disappointment in certain intellectual aspirations of Torah and success in the secular world would simply come to the conclusion that a Torah life isn’t for them and call it a day. The fact that you realize your teachers and others, while good people, may have flaws in their outlook and their human error doesn’t represent a flaw in the Torah itself really says a lot about you. While it may not be “normal” or “mainstream” for you to want to learn gemara, as long as it’s not assur then who is to say it’s not your tikkun? Don’t worry, men don’t have this exact issue but there are plenty of equally frustrating things on our side of the fence. Though everyone goes on and on about how intensive and constant gemara learning fine tunes one’s critical thinking abilities, I’ve often been quite amazed to see how easily some people turn off those abilities once they close their gemara and discuss something else.
But don’t give up. The gemara says that righteous women like Michal and Bruriah learned up Shas and even gave a lot of the talmidei chachamim of their time a run for their money, all while remaining perfectly within the realms of femininity and tzniut. Just daven to Hashem that you find the right teachers and that you find your chelek in Torah and Hashem. There are a few nice daf yomi shiurim in English and for free… on OU or Rav Eli Mansour’s site has a particularly nice one. They aren’t the best for learning skills but maybe it can help you quench your thirst. Either way b’hatzlacha and don’t let the world get you down. As long as your not going against halacha and it’s not just to show off but is out of a true desire to have a better understanding of Torah and Hashem, who is to say what your doing isn’t l’shem shamayim? Remember Avraham Aveinu stood on one side of the river with the whole rest of the world against him on the other side. But he cleaved to Hashem with all his heart and he won out in the end.