Board of selectmen vs. select board: Advocates push for gender neutral state Constitution because ‘words hurt’
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Jane Nevinsmith, Hadley Select Board member, says gender-neutral language is important because words hurt and laws including those in the Massachusetts Constitution should be inclusive. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
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The Massachusetts Constitution is the oldest continuously operational document of its kind in the world, and its author was future president John Adams, whose wife, Abigail, famously asked the Founding Fathers to “remember the ladies.”
But they didn’t not when the pioneering Mrs. Adams made her request before the Declaration of Independence was written, nor four years later, when the state’s governing document was approved in 1780.