Because woman is Other, her power operates as magic against community transcendence.

Evidence

The difference between the priest and the magician is well-known: the former dominates and directs the forces he has mastered in keeping with the gods and laws, for the good of the community, on behalf of all its members, while the magician operates outside society, against the gods and laws, according to his own passions. But woman is not fully integrated into the world of men; as other, she counters them; it is natural for her to use the strengths she possesses, not to spread the hold of transcendence across the community of men and into the future, but, being separate and opposed, to draw males into the solitude of separation, into the darkness of immanence. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 355

Categorization

• XREF: The priest-magician binary maps onto the sacred-profane and inside-outside society oppositions in Continental thought; also anticipates her later contrast of woman’s immanence vs. man’s transcendence. — connects to: Exalting woman as Other serves to block her entry into the human community — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 174; Woman’s status as Other, not femininity, gave rise to the Great Goddess cults.; Woman’s hysterical outbursts express negated power that cannot act on the world — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1751 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Woman’s complicity with male sovereignty arises from her own transcendence #expands (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 156
• Men’s contradictory demand makes woman simultaneously servant and sorceress #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406