Is 2006 Another 'Year of the Woman'?

November 7 is likely to be, in the words of the Washington Post's political dean David Broder, "an insurgency of gender politics." On October 15, Broder reported that the total of 136 women nominated for House seats is only one less than the record set in 2004. Only six women running for reelection are considered vulnerable, all Republicans. And, of course, all women are poised to celebrate the possible elevation of Nancy Pelosi to speaker of the House in the event that at least 15 house seats swing towards the Democrats.

The Year of the Woman has a familiar ring. The last time we hear those words was in 1992, fresh on the heels of the Clarence Thomas hearings, when five freshly minted women senators stood arm in arm in their primary-colored Chanel suits -- Carol Mosley Braun, Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein on the left, Kay Bailey Hutchinson on the right -- and announced that a new age of women and politics had arrived. At last, said the pundits of conventional wisdom, the single digit percentage of women officeholders would begin to be remedied.

Eight years later at the arrival of the millennium, the power surge had stalled. The single digits had increased only slightly, to 14 percent of federal offices held by women. We may lack women officeholders, but we have no shortage of possible explanations. According to the White House Project, women suffer from a lack of mentors, women candidates cannot match male candidates dollar for dollar on the fundraising trail and women have a gravitas gap. I wonder if perhaps women are just smarter than men and don't want to sacrifice their lives for the aggravation, personal and financial sacrifice -- and harsh scrutiny -- that running for office entails.

Given the ongoing barriers to women running for and winning federal elections, what makes the Year of the Woman 2.0, different from the 1.0 version 14 years ago? Support for women candidates has increased dramatically in scope and volume over the past 10 years. Candidates can get high-quality training, networks of donors and mentors through organizations like Emily's List at the national level and Emerge America! at the local and state level. But something else is going on as well. The advent of the Connected Age and social media are providing women with opportunity and advantage that gives Year of the Woman 2.0 a new dimension.

The new millennium has ushered in a "Connected Age" powered by social media -- digital tools such as Web sites, cell phones, chat rooms, personal digital assistants, iPods, and other gadgets and gizmos that are inexpensive and easy-to-use. Unlike last century's Information Age, power in the Connected Age comes from letting information go, intentionally pushing power to the edges through social networks, and freeing supporters and peers to work side-by-side to develop strategies and organize locally without top-down, command-and-control structures.

We have witnessed how social media tools transformed the way we listen to music through iTunes, report events through blogs and organize locally through Meetups. We had a taste of how these tools can change a presidential election during Howard Dean's 2004 campaign. Now we are bearing witness to how the use of social media can level the playing field for women candidates.

Three characteristics of social media benefit women candidates especially. According to the Pew Internet and American Project, women are avid e-mail users:

Women are more likely than men to use e-mail to write to friends and family about a variety of topics: sharing news and worries, planning events, forwarding jokes and funny stories . . . And women include a wider range of topics and activities in their personal e-mails.

Combine the way that women use e-mail with the fact that -- according to the 2002 National Study on the Changing Workforce -- women's combined work and life responsibilities take up a greater percentage of their overall day than that of men and the use of social media to provide easy and fast ways to participate in the political system becomes critically important to their involvement. Social media allow for participation by women volunteers in the time and space of the volunteers' choosing. Midlife women -- those who are more likely to vote for women candidates -- are often juggling careers, marriages, children and, with any room left, hobbies and volunteer efforts. Squeezing in political volunteering would not be possible if it demanded going to a campaign headquarters to stuff envelopes or make calls. However, participating online a few minutes a day, maybe at midnight or 6 in the morning, is possible.