Beyond the masks Book

I attended a talk by the author recently and was impressed by her compassionate, insightful, balanced but committed and unassumingly erudite presentation, qualities that are amply reflected in this book. Odysseus is my favourite of the Homeric heroes, and his particular patroness, Athene fascinates me as well. Shearer uses the history of the myths, iconography and interpretations of this goddess as the pivot around which revolves a discussion of concepts of feminine energies as active, creative and aggressive rather than the more common depiction of the nature of the feminine as being inward, domestic, passive. She covers a great deal of ground in the process, ranging across both space and time, visiting several other goddesses including Inanna, Minerva and Durga along the way as well as touching on historical figures or events that have embodied elements of the feminine persona as depicted in the figure of Athene such as Elizabeth the first of England and Florence Nightingale. She draws on classical, Christian, Gnostic, psychoanalytical and feminist perspectives and ends by pointing the way to a fuller, more inclusive understanding of gender, one in which characteristics that have been set in opposition over the ages are reconciled rather than polarised. In a way, this links this earlier work to her most recent book, a collaborative work on conciliatory justice. The latter work was the subject of the talk I attended, and will be the subject of a future review.