Goddess worship marked cultural stagnation, not female empowerment.

Evidence

The peoples who remained under the heel of the Mother Goddess where matrilineal filiation was perpetuated were also those arrested in a primitive state of civilization. Woman was venerated only inasmuch as man was a slave to his own fears, a party to his own impotence: it was out of fear and not love that he worshipped her. Before he could accomplish himself, he had to begin by dethroning her. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165

Categorization

• QUESTION: Beauvoir asserts matrilineal/mother-goddess cultures were ‘arrested in a primitive state of civilization’ — a claim modern archeology and anthropology has heavily contested; worth chasing the contemporary rebuttal.
• XREF: Directly contradicts the matriarchal-utopia reading later popularized by Marija Gimbutas and contemporary goddess feminism; a foundational foil. — connects to: Exalting woman spiritually sanctions her earthly subordination rather than liberating her — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 591; Woman’s status as Other, not femininity, gave rise to the Great Goddess cults.

Broader Connections

• Exalting woman spiritually sanctions her earthly subordination rather than liberating her #corroborates (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 591