Women around the world are wielding greater political power. In Janakpur, Nepal, women voted in April on an assembly to rewrite the constitution.

Is there really such a thing as a “women’s issue” anymore?
American news organizations and pollsters tread familiar territory this campaign season in asking “what women want,” but it’s a vague question. (Think of its opposite: What do men want- It’s a question that doesn’t get asked.)
One thing is clear, though: how women vote does matter deeply to Republicans and Democrats. American women have voted in greater proportions than men for almost three decades - in 2004, nearly nine million more women voted than men, 67.3 million to 58.5 million.
In the presidential election on November 4, the first with a Republican woman on the ticket, some voters say they will make their decision based on a single issue: abortion.
Amy and Scott Siegel of Neenah, Wisconsin, fall in the camp of Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin. “We basically vote pro-life,” Ms. Siegel, a mother of five, told Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times. “As a ‘little person,’ I don’t feel that any of these candidates have our best interests in mind. So if there’s a specific thing that sways our vote, it would be abortion.”
Leone Brickler, who works at a cheese factory, said she supported Senator Barack Obama because of his plans to revamp health care.
“I think Obama will do good if he is given a chance,” she told two labor union organizers in Mr. Greenhouse’s article. “I hear people say he’s all for the black people, but I think he will do what’s right for the Chinese, the whites, the Hispanics, for everyone.”
Even Newsweek magazine cast “What Women Want” as the cover story of its September 22 issue. In response, a reader, Kaja Dunn of Virginia Beach, Virginia, had a letter published in the October 6 issue: “We want a strong economy, educational opportunities, some hope of being able to raise a family or buy a house in the future, affordable health care, a fair shot in the workplace a nd equal pay.”
A lot of Ms. Dunn’s agenda would seem to appeal to voters no matter what their sex.
One thing that some women clearly do want is power, and they are seeking it, with successes and failures, on many political stages: Ms. Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the United States, Angela Merkel in Germany, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina, Segolene Royal in France, Tzipi Livni in Israel.
Even Afghanistan, long a pitiful place for women, is making progress. In Bamian Province, a relatively peaceful corner of the country, women are working in public offices and police stations. There is even a female governor, the first and only one in Afghanistan.
Nahida Rezai, 25, is the first woman to join the police force there . “I received some threats by telephone,” she said, in an article by Carlotta Gall of The Times. “But now I am working as a police officer, I think nothing can deter me.”
Senator Cecilia Lopez Montano, the speaker of the opposition Liberal Party in Colombia, said in an article by Neil MacFarquhar of The Times: “We need to convince women that the only way to really make a change is to stop complaining and just be the owner of power.
It is a huge fight because men have been controlling power for centuries.”
Power. Perhaps it’s the last remaining “women’s issue,” after all.