I used to be scared of women. When I was very young they

In the councils of old, the elders said that wonder begins where fear is faced without a sword. Antonio Banderas’s confession—“I used to be scared of women. When I was very young they terrified me, but discovering the female universe was incredible and still is to this day, as you never stop learning about them.”—traces that sacred journey. He names a passage from trembling to reverence, from the narrow shelter of boyhood to the open sky of mature regard. The line is not a boast of conquest; it is a vow of apprenticeship: to approach what once frightened him and to keep learning so that awe becomes understanding and understanding becomes care.

To say he was scared and terrified is to admit what many hide: ignorance often puts on the mask of bravado. The young build myths where they lack maps. Banderas tells us that the cure for such myths is discovering—not a furtive glance but a long listening, a patient walk through the many rooms of the female universe: mothers and mentors, friends and lovers, artists and scholars, saints and skeptics. Each encounter enlarges the cosmos; each voice alters the constellations by which a man steers. In this way fear loosens its grip, replaced not with certainty but with respect.

The word incredible signals more than delight; it signals the collapse of old limits. The female universe is not a single star but a firmament—cultures, temperaments, histories, vocations—refusing the small boxes fear prefers. To enter it is to admit that one lifetime is not enough for mastery. Hence the last clause, you never stop learning: humility made into a habit. The wise grow quieter the further they travel; the more they see, the more they kneel before what remains unseen.

Consider a story to anchor the teaching. In twelfth-century France, Peter Abelard—renowned for razor intellect—met Héloïse, whose learning matched his own. Their letters, preserved through scandal and sorrow, became a school of mutual discovery. He brought logic; she brought courage and clarity that pierced pretense. Across distance and decades, each educated the other out of fear and vanity into a chastened love of truth. Their tale is no model in every turn, but it shows how conversation with a formidable woman does not diminish a man; it humanizes him.

There is another witness in the life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the seventeenth-century scholar of New Spain. Men who were scared of her intellect tried to confine it; she answered with poetry and argument that widened the world. Those who chose discovering over defending themselves found in her writings a treasury—science, theology, wit—proof that the female universe includes the full range of human brilliance. To read her is to feel the mind’s borders move, and to learn again that reverence is the beginning of wisdom.

From Banderas’s words, take a clear lesson: let curiosity shepherd courage. Replace the impulse to judge with the discipline to ask, “What do I not yet know?” and “How shall I learn it?” Practically, that means listening longer than you speak; reading books by women about their lives and work; seeking mentorship that crosses gender without presumption; honoring boundaries; and treating every conversation as a place to practice attention. Do these small things steadily and fear will fade, not because mystery is solved, but because wonder is welcomed.

Finally, carry this rule into your days: let love be a pedagogy. To love—whether as friend, partner, colleague, or kin—is to enroll in a lifelong course where you never stop learning. Keep a journal of what you discover; apologize quickly when you stumble; resist the lazy myths; celebrate the specific gifts of the women who shape your world. In this way, the path Banderas names becomes your own: a pilgrimage from terrified to incredible, from shrinking to seeing, until your life itself becomes a respectful hymn to the vast, brilliant female universe.