Dave’s second talk at the Women’s Conference the following year referred to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” Men are chained to the wall in the cave –seeing only shadows and thinking these are real life. They have only to break their chains through self-awareness to realize that they can turn around and face the light of real life. After his talk, Dave told me that despite his Ph.D., he never really understood philosophy until I started to confront and then mentor him, which enabled him to go beyond the “masculinized ego.” Male testosterone and strength were necessary, on an evolutionarily level to hunt, build and “lift heavy things.” Today, with technology, the need for testosterone is almost outdated. The masculinized ego is the cultural result of males having been elevated in status for no other reason than they were males, and like testosterone, this elevated status no longer works for men – nor women.