( CNN ) -- Over the past few months , newspapers , websites and cable news programs have implied 2010 would be a year of remarkable progress for women in politics . With a record number of women running for the U.S. House ( 138 ) and U.S. Senate ( 15 ) , pundits , pollsters and politicians assumed it was the dawn of a new day , one in which Democrats and Republicans understood the importance of electing women . High-profile female candidates , many with interesting personal stories and personality traits , fostered the speculation that 2010 might very well be another `` Year of the Woman . '' But it was n't . In fact , Wednesday morning 's headlines did not even mention women . Obviously , Democratic losses and Republican 's ascent correctly took center stage . But some important points about women in politics slipped through the cracks . First and foremost , for the first time in 30 years , the number of women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives will likely decrease . A few contests remain too close to call . Democratic incumbents Melissa Bean and Gabrielle Giffords are fighting to hold onto their seats . Republican challengers Ann Buerkle and Ruth McClung are trailing by only a few thousand votes to the male incumbents they hope to unseat . But only if women win all of these races ( an unlikely scenario ) will the total number of women serving in the House hold steady at 73 . The story in the U.S. Senate is similar . Depending on the outcome of Lisa Murkowski 's write-in bid in Alaska , women will either continue to occupy 17 seats or they will drop to 16 . Therefore , the best-case scenario for women 's overall representation is they will continue to comprise 17 percent of Congress . Second , a net loss of women in Congress was a likely outcome heading into election night . We just did not seem to talk much about it . In an election cycle in which women competed for fewer than one-third of the 435 seats at stake in the House and only 15 seats in the Senate , substantial or even incremental gains for women were almost impossible . And because 77 percent of the women in the House and Senate were Democrats , women were in a particularly precarious position as they faced an anti-Democratic , anti-establishment electorate . The election results are consistent with what the political landscape portended . In the House , at least nine female Democratic incumbents lost their races . That number may climb to 11 when the votes are fully tallied . Only one out of 28 female Democratic challengers knocked off a Republican incumbent . And six of the nine Democratic women running in open seats lost their bids . Democratic women held four of their five seats in the Senate , although no female Democratic challengers or open-seat candidates won . Importantly , Democratic women fared no worse than their male Democratic counterparts ; of course , their male Democratic counterparts did not fare well . The only way to compensate for these losses would have been with substantial increases of women in the House and Senate on the Republican side of the aisle . That did not happen . The National Republican Congressional Committee ran women in only three of the 30 races that presented the best opportunities to gain seats . So even though all 15 female Republican incumbents who sought re-election won and even with victories by six Republican women challengers and two Republican women competing in open-seat contests , the opportunity for gains was minimal . Republican women will continue to comprise just 9 percent of their caucus in the new Congress . Third , the loss of Democratic control in the House is especially detrimental for women because opportunities for leadership positions are based on seniority . Not only will Nancy Pelosi no longer be speaker of the House , but Louise Slaughter , Nydia Velazquez and Zoe Lofgren will also no longer serve as committee chairs . Early reports of the new Republican leadership include no women 's names . I do not want to minimize that last night 's elections resulted in an increase of the total number of Republican women in Congress . And I have no interest in detracting attention from the successes several women saw last night . Nikki Haley , for instance , became South Carolina 's first female governor . Susana Martinez 's win in the New Mexico gubernatorial race means that she will be the first Latina ever to occupy a governor 's mansion . Cases such as these , however , are few and far between . Focusing on those wins obscures the reality that 2010 did not represent another `` Year of the Woman . '' It likely moved us backward on the path to gender parity . The opinion expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jennifer Lawless .
Jennifer Lawless : Number of female candidates made 2010 seem like big year for women . But when vote count is over , number will likely stay right where it is , she says . She says shift in House pushed Democrat women out of leadership positions . Lawless : Women winning governor races significant , but not same as overall gains .