After the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings gave the country a window into workplace sexual harassment — and featured a committee composed entirely of white men skeptically questioning the African-American woman detailing what she suffered at Thomas' hands — the next election, in 1992, was dubbed “The Year of the Woman.”
That year, 24 women were newly elected to the House, and the number of women in the Senate tripled — from 2 all the way to 6.
We're still a long way from gender equality in Congress, just as we are in most important institutions. But even before Brett Kavanaugh's nomination was upended by California professor Christine Blasey Ford's charge that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, the year 2018 was already a record one for women candidates, with 16 gubernatorial nominees, 22 Senate nominees, and 234 winning their party's nomination for House seats.