“It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him in all the constitutions and laws is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is not she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true in of all the criminal laws.”
Quoted in Ida Husted Harper, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1899)
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
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