ABSTRACT
Daoism, a Dao based and inspired teaching and practice, has been considered to be the philosophy of yielding in Chinese intellectual history. All phenomena in nature or, in classical Chinese terminology, "all things under heaven" can be distinguished according to their characteristics as either yin or yang, and man/male/masculinity and woman/female/femininity are naturally identified with this yinyang matrix. The Daodejing arguably designates one model of thinking about the feminine character of nature. The female is not just portrayed and acclaimed as the yin, soft force of the world, but also resonates with the mystical meanings of Dao. In a general sense, throughout much of human history and across many cultures, the masculine has been associated with power, control, and dominance, whereas the feminine has been associated with yielding, flexibility, and submissiveness. The Daodejing makes a philosophical imaginary of the feminine into a privileged locus and relies on the feminine as a way of thinking, knowing, experiencing, and desiring.
