Woman’s status as Other, not femininity, gave rise to the Great Goddess cults.
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 (
#expands, via linked claim)
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 (
#contradicts, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Goddess worship marked cultural stagnation, not female empowerment. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165; Because woman is Other, her power operates as magic against community transcendence. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 355
Broader Connections
- Because woman is Other, her power operates as magic against community transcendence.
#expands(0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 355 - Goddess worship marked cultural stagnation, not female empowerment.
#contradicts(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 165