Esplanade

Published on 25th October 2018, on Esplanade. When we refer to nature as Mother Nature, does it have to be taken literally (nature is feminine), or is it a metaphor (acknowledging nature, like a woman’s body, brings forth life as well as food to sustain that life)? What then is the male counterpart of nature? It is important to ask this question in our use of gender as metaphor when we are studying mythology. For increasingly in academic circles, under influence of feminist and gender studies, there is a tendency to caricature genders, with the male often reduced to the oppressive villainous patriarch and the ..