‘In the arts of staining, dyeing, colouring and painting her teeth, her clothes, her nails and her body a woman should be beyond compare,’ the emperor said, his speech now sluggish with lust. (…) ‘A woman should know how to play music on glasses filled to different heights with liquids of various sorts’ (…) ‘ She should be able to fix stained glass into a floor. She should know how to make, trim and hang a picture; how to fashion a necklace, a rosary, a garland or a wreath; and how to store or gather water in a aqueduct or tank. She should know about scents. And about ornaments for the ear. And she should be able to act, and to lay on theatrical shows, and she should be quick and sure in her hands, and be able to cook and make lemonade or sherbet, and wear jewels, and bind a man’s turban. And she should, of course, know magic. A woman who knows these few things is almost the equal of any ignorant brute of a man.’
Salman Rushdie, “The Enchantress of Florence”
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