“They talk about recruiting more women to run, but those efforts tend to disintegrate,” said Snowe. “I’ve seen it so often. They all sort of fizzle out. I don’t think there’s a genuine will.”

Snowe recalled that when she was recruited in 1978, party leaders were so eager to get her on the team that they promised that if she’d run, they’d back her in a primary if one occurred. “And they didn’t ask me my position on abortion.”

Maine has a long tradition of electing progressive Republican women to the Senate. Before Snowe, there was Margaret Chase Smith, who spent much of the 1950s and 1960s as the only woman in her chamber. She was the first senator from either party who dared to stand up to Joseph McCarthy’s virulent anti-Communist crusade. But she had to stand in line with the tourists when she wanted to use a restroom in the Capitol. Smith started out in the House, where she served on the Naval Affairs Committee. After long evenings of subcommittee work she’d occasionally be taken out for a walk by a staff member — her male colleagues, she said, were exhausted from having “a woman around all the time.”

When Patty Murray got the first real budget deal since 2010, she did it, in part, by patiently letting her opponents blather away until they toppled over with exhaustion. In a truly just world, volunteers would have offered to invite Ted Cruz for a stroll.

If Senator Smith could see the powerful women in Congress now, she’d probably be tickled. But you wonder what she would think of her party.

While American women have been winning rights and opportunities that were unimaginable only a few decades ago, the one thing that’s gone in the opposite direction is the Republican Party, which is willing to train its members in how to talk to the ladies, but not open its doors to candidates who believe in reproductive rights. This is the party that used to be well ahead of the competition when it came to support for women’s issues — from the Equal Rights Amendment to family planning.

“Oh my, gosh! She’d be appalled,” Snowe said of Smith. “She’d be appalled. I don’t think she could conceive of how it’s all evolved today. Even in my own experience, it’s hard to comprehend.”