Screenwriter, director, and essayist Nora Ephron returned to her alma mater Wellesley College in 1996 to deliver one of the most celebrated commencement addresses in the college's history. She had spent the speech describing how her class of 1962 had been trained to be ladies — 'to preside at a dinner table or a committee meeting' and 'spend our lives making nice' — and how many of her classmates ended up feeling like victims when the rules changed and they were caught in a strange time warp. This climactic line turned the entire speech from historical reflection into urgent present-tense advice. Unlike Ephron's generation, the class of 1996 couldn't claim ignorance of their options. Their education was not a credential to be displayed but a dress rehearsal for a life they would actually lead. The word 'heroine' was deliberately chosen — not hero, but heroine — insisting that these women claim the central role in their own stories rather than playing supporting parts in someone else's.