United States of America

Before Anthony Weiner cannonballed into the 2013 New York City mayoral race, the storyline of the election had been whether mayoral frontrunner and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn would become the city's first female mayor (and its first openly gay mayor to boot).

Michelle Nunn has electrified Georgia Democrats by announcing she will run for the U.S. Senate in 2014. Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) has electrified Texas Democrats with her standup leadership in the Texas Senate. Hillary Clinton inspires Democrats everywhere with her prospects for the presidency in 2016. 

At a summer lunch with reporters in her Capitol conference room, Rep. Nancy Pelosi rolled out an ambitious economic agenda for women with next year’s congressional elections in mind.

When 2013 began, there was a fair amount of hope that women could make up for their relatively measly representation in local offices nationwide by capturing the mayoralty in three of the nation's five largest cities.

In all the U.S. cities with populations above 30,000, only 17 percent have women serving as mayor. EMILY's List, the political action committee that seeks to elect pro-choice women, hopes to change that.