The Virgin Mary replaced goddesses with a male-serving image of woman

Evidence

Christ is God; but it is a woman, the Virgin Mother, who reigns over all human creatures. Yet only marginal sects restore the great goddesses’ ancient privileges to the woman. The Church expresses and serves a patriarchal civilization where it is befitting for woman to remain annexed to man. As his docile servant, she will also be a blessed saint. Thus the image of the most perfected woman, propitious to men, lies at the heart of the Middle Ages: the face of the Mother of Christ is encircled in glory. She is the inverse figure of the sinner Eve; she crushes the serpent under her foot; she is the mediator of salvation, as Eve was of damnation. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 367

Categorization

• XREF: Mary as inverse Eve echoes the Mary/Eve dichotomy in feminist theology; connects to Marina Warner’s Alone of All Her Sex. — connects to: Women channeled the ecstatic religious madness that patriarchy had displaced onto a male god — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 340; Patriarchal religions purify woman of her stained nature through male-defined submission — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 170; The Virgin Mary embodies life-nurturing functions denied to women as creators — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 395 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Men transform woman from flesh into an ethereal ideal, denying her body #expands (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 383
• The mystical exaltation of woman still subordinates her as man’s instrument of salvation #corroborates (0.86) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 589
• The Virgin Mary embodies life-nurturing functions denied to women as creators #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 395
• Patriarchal religions purify woman of her stained nature through male-defined submission #corroborates (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 170
• Patriarchal mythology projects its own values onto woman and calls imposed immanence her nature #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 655
• Christianity spiritualized woman into the soul of home and nation #expands (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 377
• Eulogius fabricated the claim that Muhammad would deflower the Virgin Mary in the afterlife #responds-to (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 531