The best protection any woman can have... is courage.

Stanton’s line reframes “protection” away from external guardianship—laws, chivalry, or male relatives—and toward an internal capacity for self-assertion. In the world she confronted, women were often told safety and respectability depended on obedience and dependence; courage, by contrast, implies speaking publicly, resisting intimidation, and claiming equal standing even when social norms punish such behavior. The statement also carries a strategic feminist argument: durable security comes from agency and collective willingness to challenge unjust arrangements, not from paternalistic promises that can be withdrawn. It is both personal counsel and political principle, aligning moral bravery with women’s emancipation.