Beating breast cancer as a mom of young children made Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz reshape her priorities as a politician and leader of the Democratic Party, she told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, also a breast cancer survivor, on Tuesday.

When it comes to helping women build careers in politics, some states do better than others. For more than two decades, women in Indiana have been getting their first taste of public service through the Lugar Series. What we have learned here in Indiana is that we can do so much to expand the ranks of women leaders in politics, especially on the Republican side of the aisle, through a combination of outreach and engagement.

Why some say the GOP can't compete until it adds more female consultants to its ranks “If you look at the numbers, women are the majority of the population; we’re the majority of voters,” Thompson says. “We have a higher turnout ratio, and we’re the majority of consumers, the majority of television watchers. If you want to talk to the majority of voters, you have to craft a campaign that talks to women.”

With Janet Yellen slated to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, the nation is abuzz with the implications of her historic nomination. But while Yellen is the 28th woman Obama has chosen for an executive role, the percentage of women entering top political positions is still disproportionate to the percentage of women in the country. This is abundantly clear during election season. Though 2012 saw a record number of women elected as public officials, few women make it to the ballot in the first place. Why?

President Obama's nomination of the qualified, prescient, and eminently deserving Janet Yellen as the chairman (chairwoman?) of the Federal Reserve yesterday will make her — if confirmed — the first woman in history to hold the position. It's far from the only D.C. office never to be occupied by a boss with two X chromosomes: Just seven women are currently serving among the Obama administration's 23 cabinet-level jobs, and only 45 women have held such spots in the history of the country.