Ten women ran for governor in their respective states, and four were elected.
Those put into office were Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Linda Lingle of Hawaii, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Jennifer Graholm of Michigan.
After their inaugurations, a record number of six women will serve as governors. Montana and Delaware did not have gubernatorial races and retained their female governors.
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Though women made advances in this year's election, experts say women have great strides to make before they equal men in representation -- especially in the nation's highest offices.
"If governorships are the path to the presidency, then it's going to be quite some time before we have a woman president," said UNC political science Professor Susan Bickford.
Though North Carolina elected a woman -- Republican Elizabeth Dole -- to the U.S. Senate, men are still the majority in Congress.
Dole is the first woman to serve the state of North Carolina in the Senate. She was also the first woman who was a viable candidate for president. She ran for office in 1996 but dropped out of the race before the primary.
After the 2000 elections, there were 73 women in Congress -- 60 in the House of Representatives and 13 in the Senate -- out of the total 535 elected members.
After this year's general election, the number of women remains the same as during the previous session.
Incumbent Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., lost her race, but Dole's win recovered the loss.
"There is something wrong when women are over 50 percent of the population and less than 15 percent in Congress," said UNC political science Professor Pamela Conover.
Conover cited the election system structure as a large reason for the low number of women in political offices.
Women challenging incumbents are always at a disadvantage when it comes to raising funds and getting name recognition, she said.
Getting more women into political offices requires education of women and perseverance on their part, said UNC political science Professor Isaac Unah.
He added that the importance of public service must be impressed upon women early in life.
"Society would be to some extent better off if we had more women in political offices," Unah said.
Conover said the female sector of society might benefit from more women holding office because gender matters when it comes to the way a political official will behave.
Female officeholders are more attentive to women's issues such as education and welfare, she said.
But Conover cautioned that electing women doesn't always result in policy changes.
It takes a critical mass of women to change policy, and that just doesn't exist in Congress, she said.
Conover added that when it comes to issues of importance to the women's movement, a conservative woman can be just as antagonistic as a man.
"If I had to choose between an all-female conservative Congress or an all-male liberal Congress, I would choose the all-male Congress," she said.
There is a dilemma between the symbolic value and the practical value of having a conservative woman in office, Conover said.
Bickford echoed Conover's sentiment, saying, "Having the Republicans in control of the U.S. Congress and the executive branch poses more of a threat to the women's movement."
It is difficult still for many people to disentangle gender from partisanship, she said.
More women need to run for political office for voters to have adequate choices, Bickford said.
Bickford also said that if more women were running for political offices, voters could choose woman candidates based on their political ideologies rather than their genders.
The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.
