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TheYear of the Woman was a popular label attached to 1992 after the election of a number of femalesenators in theUnited States.[1] The term has also been used with respect to the2018 House elections, in which a record 103 women were elected, 90 of whom were Democrats.[2][3]
The hotly contested Senate confirmation hearings in 1991 forSupreme Court nomineeClarence Thomas involving the allegations ofAnita Hill raised the question of the dominance of men in the Senate.[1]
In 1991, the Senate included two female members, but neitherNancy Kassebaum ofKansas norBarbara Mikulski of Maryland served on theJudiciary Committee. Reportedly,Washington state senatorPatty Murray decided to run for the U.S. Senate after watching these hearings.[1]
While Murray set out to raise the necessary funds, two other women several hundred miles to the south inCalifornia began work on their own Senate campaigns. As a result, on January 3, 1993, for the first time in American history, California became the first state in the nation to be represented in the Senate by two women. In the 1992 elections,Dianne Feinstein, a formerDemocratic mayor ofSan Francisco, running for the balance of an uncompleted term, beat her opponent with a margin of nearly two million votes, whileBarbara Boxer—a 10-year veteran of theU.S. House of Representatives who had joined six of her Democratic women colleagues in a march on the Senate to urge greater attention to Anita Hill's charges—solidly won a full term.[1]
At a presidential debate at theUniversity of Richmond, PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush was asked when his party might nominate a woman for president. Bush, noting that the women running that year were predominantly liberal Democrats, stated "This is supposed to be the year of the women in the Senate. Let's see how they do. I hope a lot of them lose."[4]
A week after the election, a popularWashington Post photograph illustrated the situation. Standing with exultant DemocraticMajority LeaderGeorge Mitchell were not only Murray, Feinstein and Boxer but alsoCarol Moseley Braun of Illinois, the first black woman elected to the Senate. Never before had four women been elected to the Senate in a single election year. (Five, if Mikulski's successful re-election bid that year is counted.) Within months, another woman senator would join them:Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who won a special election in June 1993.[1]
When the newcomers joined incumbents Kassebaum and Mikulski in January 1993, headline-writers described the occurrence as "The Year of the Woman." In response, Senator Mikulski said, "Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of theCaribou or the Year of theAsparagus. We're not afad, a fancy, or a year."[1] Mikulski predicted that, as more women joined the Senate, the novelty of a female senator would fade; as more women joined the Senate in the coming years, this prediction came true.[1]