No other Northern state ranks as low. The only states lower? Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina - the first state, I'd remind you, to secede from the Union.
And our number could decline. At least three incumbent women - Philly's Kathy Manderino, Chester County's Barb McIlvaine Smith and Lancaster's Katie True - aren't seeking re-election this year.
All this is despite facts common to all but a few states: In Pennsylvania women outnumber men (52 percent to 48 percent); women register to vote at higher rates than men (69 percent to 67 percent), and women vote more than men (62 percent to 59 percent).
The figures are from the U.S. census and pertain to the 2008 elections. The figures and other data represent only marginal progress since I last wrote about this issue, in 2003.
Then, we ranked 47th with a Legislature 13 percent female. Then, we were the only state in which men outregistered women. But then and now, the numbers suggest a women-are-fer-breed'n'-not-fer-leadin' attitude.
We've never elected a woman governor (20 other states have) or U.S. senator (22 other states have). We've sent only seven women to Congress ever, and three of them succeeded deceased husbands. We now have two: Philly/Montco's Allyson Schwartz and Erie's Kathy Dahlkemper.
Barbara Hafer, elected state auditor general and treasurer and the state's first major-party woman candidate for governor (1990), is running for the Johnstown congressional seat that was held by the late Jack Murtha. I ask her: Why so few women in state politics?
"Politics is tough, and you have to stay around and fight," she says. "Also, a lot of the old excuses hold: Harrisburg's a 'boys' town' and women don't like to travel or be away from home for long stretches."
