Once for Halloween
I dressed up as Athena
The Greek goddess
My favorite Greek goddess
And it was a decent costume
Your standard iParty fare
Paired with an elaborate hairdo and some 50 cent earrings
And I knew I was only a cheap imitation
Nothing close to the real thing
For no one would ever build me a temple
Burn cattle in my name
Put on white robes and fall to their knees
For me
No, not for me
But for Athena
Oh, how they fell!
How the ancient Greeks worshipped her very name
Gave her their capital city
And dedicated the most powerful force to her
Wisdom
That force which drove the philosophers
The very energy
That sustained Socrates
And Plato
And Aristotle
And all those dead guys we read about in class

I was in a class
Reading the words those dead guys collected
In their moments of clarity
But all I could think about
All I really wanted
Was to throw on a white robe
And fall to my knees at the Parthenon
Begging for wisdom, wisdom
Please, Athena, some wisdom!
I don't care if it's heresy
I don't care if you're a myth nowadays
Because you once reigned
You once stood on Mount Olympus
In all your ancient power
And watched your people crying out wisdom, Athena, wisdom!
Please!

I wish
I could have been there
I wish I could have seen
The day the goddess cracked open Zeus's skull
And was born
Fully armed
Ready for her battle
Not the fight for wisdom, no
The fight she faced was undying
The war she would lead
Would ripple through the ages
Taking all civilizations
And tearing at their social order
For it was the men she was fighting
The disbelieving fools who put her *** down
Taking all women's wisdom
And deeming it inferior
Substandard
Not good enough
So Athena blazed in glory
And for her, men believed
Believed in their mothers and wives and daughters
Saw in that enthroned goddess
The sparks that fueled women's minds

Yes, I wish I'd been there
I wish I could have kissed her sword
And asked her to stick around
To blaze her way to the twenty-first century
And make these guys tremble, too
Instead
I look around my 80% male college of engineering
And wonder why I need to prove my worth
Simply because I have a second x chromosome
I wish that I could blaze in glory
And dazzle them all the same
That my Halloween costume could be enough to fool them
That they would turn their toga-party bedsheets
Into white robes
And fall to their knees
Gasping, "Wisdom, wisdom!"
And that, for one moment
I could be their goddess