drugs are the primary anxieties for some girls. Others are in the
midst of poetic or creative upheavals or preoccupied with thoughts
about death, insanity, mysticism, or religious conflict. All are topics
to discuss with friends who have similar concerns, not with an un-
romantic observer or skeptical rationalist, such as young Athena is.
Moreover, in Greek mythology, Athena once had a friend who
was like a sister, called Iodama or Pallas. The two girls were playing
a competitive game, which turned deadly when Athena’s spear ac-
cidentally struck and killed her friend. (One account of the origin
of the name “Pallas Athena” was to honor her friend.) As in the
myth, if the Athena girl’s lack of empathy does not kill her potential
for friendship with other girls, her Athena need to win may do so.
In real life, a woman friend may become appalled when her Athena
companion forgets the importance of their relationship and instead
concentrates on winning—sometimes even by deception, revealing
a side of her personality that kills the friendship.
A lack of kinship with other women usually began in childhood
with their admiration of and affinity to their fathers, and/or with
dissimilarity of personality and intellect between themselves and
their mothers. This tendency is then compounded by a lack of close
female friendships. As a consequence, Athena women don’t feel like
sisters under the skin with other women. They neither feel them-
selves akin to traditional women, nor to feminists, whom they may
superficially resemble, especially if they are career women. Thus
“sisterhood” is a foreign concept to most Athena women.
In mythology, it was Athena who cast the decisive vote for the
patriarchy in the trial of Orestes. In contemporary times, it has often
been an Athena woman who, by speaking against affirmative action,
the Equal Rights Amendment, or abortion rights, was decisive in
defeating the feminist position. I recall how effective Athena was
when I was an ERA proponent. An Athena woman would rise to
speak with a ringing cry of “I am a woman and I am against the
ERA!” And the mostly male and mostly silent opposition would
rally behind her. Each time, she was a local equivalent of Phyllis
Schlafly—both in her role as defender of the patriarchal status quo,
and
Goddesses in Everywoman