“Of course not.”
“Do you tell me that you tax property, to whatever amount, and for whatever purpose, you choose, without allowing the owner her fractional right to decide about either the one or the other?”
“Their interests are identical with ours,” I replied, “so what is the difference? We men manage the government business, and I fancy we do it sufficiently well.”
I expanded my chest after this remark, and Severnius simply looked at me. I think that at that moment I suffered vicariously in his scornful regard for all my countrymen.
I did not like the Socratic method he had adopted in this conversation, and I turned the tables on him.
“Do your women hold office, other than in the school board and the council?” I asked.
“O, yes, fully half our offices are filled by women.”
“And you make no discrimination in the kind of office?”
“The law makes none; those things adjust themselves. Fitness, equipment, are the only things considered. A woman, the same as a man, is governed by her taste and inclination in the matter of office-holding. Do women never take a hand in state affairs on the Earth?”