Perhaps you'll apprentice to a healer when you're older," Grete suggested. "I'd say you have the gift for it."
Hen reddened, then seemed suddenly fascinated with a speck on her shoe. "Be nice to have a gift for something," she said after a moment. "But they don't let girls apprentice, now, do they?"
Grete harrumphed. "A bunch of fools, the lot who came up with that system. You lose half the world's brainpower that way.

Author: Frances O'Roark Dowell