try: the true cost of anything is what we give up in order to have it.
It is the path not taken. To take the responsibility of making the
choice is crucial and not always easy. What defines the heroine is
that she does it.
The nonheroine woman, in contrast, goes along with someone
else’s choice. Rather than actively deciding if this is what she wants
to do, she half-heartedly acquiesces. What often results is a self-made
victim who says (after the fact), “I didn’t really want to do this. It
was your idea” (“It’s all your fault that we got into this mess, or
moved here, or that I am unhappy”). Or she may feel victimized
and accuse, “We are always doing what you want to do!” without
acknowledging that she never took a position or stood her ground.
From the simplest question, “What do you want to do tonight?”—to
which she replies, “Whatever you want to do”—her habit of defer-
ence can grow until what she does with her life is out of her hands.
There is also another nonheroine pattern. It is lived out by the
woman who stays at a crossroads, unclear about how she feels, or
uncomfortable as choicemaker, or unwilling to make a choice because
she doesn’t want to give up any options. She is often a bright, talen-
ted, attractive woman who is playing at life, backing away from re-
lationships that turn too serious for her or from careers that require
too much time or effort. Her not-deciding stance is, of course, in
reality a choice of nonaction. She may spend ten years waiting at
the crossroads, before she becomes aware that life is passing her by.
So women need to become choicemaker-heroines instead of being
passive, or victim-martyrs, or pawns moved around by other people
or circumstance. Becoming a heroine is an enlightening new possib-
ility for women who have been inwardly ruled by vulnerable god-
dess archetypes. Asserting themselves is a heroic task for women
who have been as compliant as Persephone; or who have put their
men first, as would Hera; or who have looked out for everyone else’s
needs, as does Demeter. To do so goes against how they were raised,
as well.
Moreover, the need to become a choicemaker-heroine is a jolt to
many women who mistakenly assumed that they already were. As
virgin goddess women, they may have been as
The Heroine in Everywoman