“Under penalty of death, you can go no further.” I stared at the smoke plumes rising from the altar beyond the gate. “But why can’t I go, too?” For years, whenever I recalled her answer, it would bestow on me the same jolt of surprise I’d felt the day she’d uttered it. “Because, Ana, you are female. This is the Court of Women. We can go no further.” In this manner I discovered that God had relegated my sex to the outskirts of practically everything.
