This year's election didn't show a gender gap, it showed a gender canyon. Bill Clinton and feminists in Congress made a real difference for women, and women went to the polls and made a difference for them. But our work is not done.

Feminist candidates re-gained much of the ground lost in 1994. Two years ago, we lost some of our best friends in Congress. This year, we didn't lose a single feminist woman and we picked up new ones. We were particularly pleased to have protected four African American women threatened by re-districting -- Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), Eva Clayton (D-N.C.), Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sheila Jackson Lee (both, D-Texas). We also elected at least a half dozen new feminist women to the U.S. House: Ellen Tauscher, California; Diana DeGette, Colorado; Julia Carson, Indiana; Carolyn McCarthy, New York; Debbie Stabenow, Michigan; and Darlene Hooley, Oregon. And we elected two good women to top posts -- Jeanne Shaheen, the first woman governor in New Hampshire, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana to the U.S. Senate.

Although this may not have been another Year of the Woman in terms of candidates elected, it was the year of the women's agenda. Candidates spokes of education, family and medical leave, day care and health care for our children and for our elderly parents. They were trying to sweet talk us for our votes.

Now we have to strengthen the political will of the White House to match their words with deeds. For in Congress we face the very real danger of a Newt in sheep's clothing. Conservative leaders seem to think women voters had a problem with their message, not their substance. They didn't just sound too radical, they were too radical. It is precisely because conservative extremists now plan to put back on their political camouflage that our loss on affirmative action in California was a warning shot. They have test-marketed a strategy of false civility that strips women and people of color of our civil rights. This is a not a day when any progressive person in this country can rest easy.