I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a

Hear the words of John Adams, one of the founding fathers of America, who once wrote in a letter to his wife Abigail: “I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.” To the modern ear these words may sound sharp, unjust, even sorrowful, and indeed they reveal the limits of the age in which they were spoken. Yet they also stand as a testimony to how far society has traveled, and how much further it must go. For Adams, a man of great vision and courage, could imagine a new republic, yet even he was bound by the chains of his time, believing that politics was the realm of men alone.

The origin of this quote lies in the late eighteenth century, when America was being born in fire and revolution. John Adams, serving as a statesman in Philadelphia and abroad, corresponded often with his wife Abigail. Their letters are among the most treasured in American history, filled with wit, tenderness, and debate. Abigail was no ordinary woman of her time—she was keenly intelligent, politically aware, and unafraid to challenge her husband’s views. In one famous exchange, she urged him to “remember the ladies” when drafting new laws for the young nation. Yet Adams, half in jest and half in truth, dismissed her plea, claiming that the authority of men would not yield so easily. His words—“because you are a woman”—embody the dismissive view of women’s political role in that era.

And yet, history itself rebuked this view. For though John Adams withheld politics from his letters, Abigail lived and breathed politics in her own way. She managed the family farm, raised their children, and held her household together while her husband shaped a nation. Her advice and judgment guided Adams more than he admitted, and her letters prove she understood the stakes of independence as deeply as any man. The contradiction between her brilliance and his dismissal reveals the tragic irony of history: that women helped build nations, even while being told they had no place in politics.

Consider also the long chain of women who shared Abigail’s fate—queens who advised kings but were denied crowns, mothers who raised statesmen but were denied votes, activists who rallied for justice but were silenced by law. Their exclusion did not reflect their weakness, but the blindness of the societies in which they lived. Like Cassandra of Troy, gifted with sight but cursed never to be believed, women for centuries spoke wisdom that men ignored, to the cost of nations.

Yet out of such injustice, movements arose. The suffragettes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries carried forward the cry that Abigail once voiced. They marched, protested, and endured imprisonment so that women would no longer be barred from the councils of power. Their victories were hard-won, and they came centuries after Adams’s letter—but they proved that the dismissal “because you are a woman” would no longer suffice as an answer to exclusion.

The lesson here is clear: the greatness of a society cannot be measured only by the voices it allows, but also by the voices it silences. To deny half of humanity a place in politics is to cripple the body of the nation, to cut away half its wisdom, half its courage, half its vision. The world is made whole only when women and men share in the burdens of power, each contributing their strength to the common good.

And what actions must we take? Honor the legacy of those silenced voices by ensuring that none are excluded today. In every meeting, in every council, in every election, let us remember Abigail’s call: “remember the ladies.” Let us listen with respect to those who have been ignored, amplify voices that have been quieted, and never again permit the excuse of “because you are a woman” to bar anyone from the realm of politics. For in truth, politics is not the preserve of men, but the shared duty of all who live within the community of nations.

Thus, let John Adams’s words endure not as a command, but as a caution. They remind us of the narrowness of the past and the breadth of the path that lies ahead. Let future generations rise above such limits, so that the councils of power reflect not the dominance of one half, but the harmony of the whole. In this way, the dream of liberty will no longer be partial, but complete.