"I grew up in a very female world with three younger sisters, so I was always comfortable around women, which was one of the reasons I hated my boarding school [Rugby], because there were no girls or women there. I think a lot of men are scared of women, and if the women are competent, brilliant or self-assured, they become even scarier. But to me, that's enormously attractive. I can't dream of having as a friend, or anything else in my life, a woman who is not those things."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie