The year 2012 to be a record year for women running for Congress

These numbers should be improving every year until we reach a 50/50 ratio in both houses of Congress. There's no reason why the number of women should be as low as it is today.
More on the big year for women at the Huffington Post:

Women currently hold 73 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Four states -- Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi and Vermont -- have never had a woman serving in their congressional delegation.

"Research shows that women leaders introduce more bills, bring more resources home to their districts and advocate for new issues on the legislative agenda," said Mary Hughes, founder of the 2012 Project, in a statement.

Already in this election cycle, 294 women have filed to run for House seats, with four more expected to do so, breaking the previous record set in 2010 of 262 women.

There are also a record number of Democratic women running for Senate seats in the 2012 elections.