Rabbi Yonathan argued that the explicit mention of "a man or a woman" in (Exodus 21:29) was not even necessary to include women in injury law. Two other verses already accomplished this.
(Exodus 21:34) says: "The owner shall pay" — using a word that encompasses any owner, male or female. (Exodus 22:5) says: "Pay shall pay the lighter of the fire" — again using language that includes any person who causes damage, regardless of gender. Both verses use formulations broad enough to include women without needing to specify them.
So why did the Torah write "a man or a woman" in verse 29 at all? Rabbi Yonathan's answer is that the phrase serves a broader teaching function. It was written "for its learning" — to establish a principle that could be applied to every other passage where only "a man" is mentioned. By explicitly stating "man or woman" in one place, the Torah created a precedent that equates women with men universally across all injury cases.
The three rabbis — Yishmael, Yoshiyah, and Yonathan — all arrived at the same conclusion through different routes. Women are fully included in injury law. But each traced the inclusion to a different textual mechanism, demonstrating that the Torah's language supported this conclusion from multiple angles simultaneously. The law was not hanging on a single thread but was woven from several independent strands of reasoning.