“But let’s set all that aside for now and focus on what Romney gets right. Women have lost work since Obama took office. The question is: why?

The answer, in part, lies with the huge contractions we’ve seen among state and local government payrolls. As illustrated in the chart above, created by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women are way over-represented in the public sector, especially on the local and state level. When those governments cut back, females suffer. And in the wake of the recession, they’ve cut back big time, even as the federal workforce has grown slightly.”