After Election Success, What\'s Next for U.S. Women?

NEW YORK â€" It was a battle won, not the war.

Women's history-making victory last week in the U.S. elections stirred up the dust that had seemed to have settled over the movement to get more women elected to office. The vote brought an injection of new blood and energy, new strategies, new questions and a whole lot of ambition.

For moderate and sensible conservative Republicans, the disproportionate victories of Democratic women and their lopsided support of President Obama raise painful questions: How long can the party be captive to its far-right wing whose ‘‘war on women'' and extreme anti-abortion views cost the party at least a seat or two in the U.S. Senate and probably the presidency?

But triumphant Democratic women know, having come off years of stagnant political growth and reversals at the ballot box, that attention must be paid to the nuts and bolts. Advancement on all fronts - within the party power structure, and in state legislatures, s tate houses and Congress - demand vigilance and sweat and tons of money and muscle.

‘‘We have been sleep-walking since 1992,'' said Siobhan ‘‘Sam'' Bennett, the head of Women's Campaign Fund, last week in an interview for my latest Female Factor column. ‘‘We thought this problem would somehow magically solve itself after 1992 ‘year of the woman.' Nothing could be further from the truth.''

Ms. Bennett wants the major political parties to enact mandates to guarantee women no less than 30 percent of their candidacies.

But gender quotas have few champions in quota-phobic America, even among feminists. There's little or no chance that such a gambit would receive viable support in Washington. Even in Western Europe, where gender quotas have wide backing, a proposal to require companies to set aside 40 percent of their boards for women has run into tough opposition from across the European Union.

If quotas and like measures find only small supp ort in the United States, what can women and advocates do to double down on political empowerment?

Michelle Bachelet, who was the first female president of Chile and is now head of the U.N. Women agency, told me a few months ago that nothing changed the status of women in her country as profoundly as having a female head of state. That did more to advance Chilean women than all the laws put together, she recalled.

Ask just about any woman and she will likely tell you, ‘‘Elect a woman president!''

Ask any Democrat, and she will cry out: ‘‘Hillary in 2016!''

But getting there will take a little bit of work, different approaches and voices, with or without Hillary Clinton.

For now, think about this: What should women do with their new power in the United States? What should be their policy and legislation priorities? What can they learn from women who have a greater say in other countries' politics and policy? Does anyone think that the 30 percent solution has a chance?

Let us know.