play a part in deciding if she will get the grants and positions needed
in order to do the work.
To accomplish what she has done, Rosalyn Yalow, the Nobel Prize
winner in chemistry for her discoveries in radioimmunoassay (the
use of radioactive isotopes to measure amounts of hormones and
other chemicals in the body) must be a brilliant Athena. She has
spoken of the joy of working her hands and her brain (combining
the wisdom and handicraft aspects of Athena). Yalow had to be a
keen strategist to devise the laboratory sequences leading to her
discoveries, an ability that must also have held her in good stead
when career politics were involved.
THE CRAFTSWOMAN
As Goddess of Crafts, Athena was involved with making things
that were both useful and esthetically pleasing. She was most noted
for her skills as a weaver, in which hands and mind must work to-
gether. To make a tapestry or a weaving, a woman must design and
plan what she will do and then, row by row, methodically create it.
This approach is an expression of the Athena archetype, which em-
phasizes foresight, planning, mastery of a craft, and patience.
Frontier women who spun thread, wove cloth, and made practic-
ally everything that was worn by their families embodied Athena
in her domestic realm. Side by side with their husbands, they wrested
land from the wilderness, subduing nature as they pushed the
frontier west. To survive and succeed required Athena traits.
THE FATHER’S DAUGHTER
As the archetype of “the father’s daughter,” Athena represents
the woman who quite naturally gravitates toward powerful men
who have authority, responsibility, and power—men who fit the
archetype of the patriarchal father or “boss man.” Athena predis-
poses woman to form mentor relationships with strong men who
share with her mutual interests and similar ways of looking at things.
She expects two-way loyalty. Like Athena herself, once she gives
him her allegiance, she is his
Athena: Goddess of Wisdom Growing beyond the confining