The Odyssey: 'A story of sex, strategy and power'

Tellingly, in most instances in which she appears to Odysseus and his son Telemachus, Athena disguises herself as a man. She poses, for example, as Mentes, a king friendly to Ithaca, and as a male herald of the Phaeacians. Athena knows only too well that it is men who hold power on earth, but women who shape events through subterfuge.