Sorry to come really, really late into this conversation. Couple of observations.
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It really, really bothers me that the only time I ever see the question of gender come up in these conversations is when an emphasis is put on the feminine. If someone suggests we could refer to humanity as womankind instead of mankind; if someone suggests we could see what is commonly understood as “God” as female; if someone refers to this planet as a mother rather than a genderless thing, someone always says, “Oh, I don’t like to get into gender.” What is it about the female or the feminine that gives people the heebie-jeebies? (Note I didn’t say “men”–I see women creeping out about this too. Why is that? Are we self-hating now?)
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The main problem I see with the Mother Earth concept is not that it invokes gender but that it implies a relationship of separateness. After all, we are not part of our mothers (or our fathers either–same problem). If what we are aiming for here is relationship with all other living things on this planet, I think we need a different metaphor. The Gaia hypothesis works pretty well for that, conveying the concept of Earth’s biosphere as a giant living organism and all of us parts of its (her?) body. If I am a cell in Earth’s body then by definition I am not separate.
Of course then we would have to again consider that the Earth might be feminine in nature, or at least asexual. Now, pure maleness, or I should say the male sexual characteristics, are only needed for fertilizing an ovum. The male does not become pregnant and does not feed offspring with his body, as female mammals do. (Please do not throw up the seahorse in my face; fish are not mammals, and holding baby fish in a pouch is not giving birth to them. Yet people will persist in holding up male seahorses as “proof” that males “give birth.” Hahahahaha. snort) Femaleness at least produces the eggs that actually turn into new beings, if not carries them throughout the pregnancy process until giving birth, and sometimes afterward will nourish the offspring with mother’s milk. There’s more involvement there. And asexual beings are not simply beings without gender; they are capable of producing complete offspring by themselves without seeking genetic input from others of their species. In other words they are a lot more like females than males. This would be why scientists call one-celled organisms “mother cells” and their offspring “daughter cells.” And if you look at multicellular animals who are capable of parthenogenesis, both they and their offspring are female.
So while it may not be terribly helpful to see the Earth as mother, it’s not out of line to see the Earth as female.