Although some women wrote big checks in 2012, they still lagged behind male donors. | AP Photos The mega-donor glass ceiling

The top female donor in the 2012 election was Miriam Adelson.

She gave about $46 million, mostly to Republican committees and super PACs, which was more than twice as much as the next top 15 women donors — combined. Her husband, Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, donated $50 million.


But Miriam Adelson, a physician and drug addiction expert, wasn’t the one getting attention for hanging out with Mitt Romney in Jerusalem, actively speaking out against Obama administration policies or being courted by politicians.

Women are breaking barriers in all parts of the political world. But when it comes to campaign contributions, there’s barely a crack in the glass ceiling.

( PHOTOS: Republican money men)

The reasons vary: a relative lack of cash, distaste in the process and a decision to donate money elsewhere were among the most common explanations given to POLITICO.

But the outcome is clear. In a universe in which megadonors rule and increasingly are able to impact a primary or general election all by themselves, women aren’t always at the table in the same way as men. And that has an impact on what gets discussed on the campaign trail or rises to the top of the agenda in Congress, donors and political operatives said.

Instead, it’s wealthy men such as Charles and David Koch, Jeffrey Katzenberg or Foster Friess who have the clout. They’re the ones reporters chase down or appear on cable TV ( sometimes to the ultimate detriment of their candidate) and whose ideas can drive the national conversation.

“It would be naive to say that political giving doesn’t influence what gets discussed and what gets talked about,” said Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, president and CEO of the Women’s Campaign Fund and a onetime Democratic congressional candidate.

( PHOTOS: 2012 mega-donors)

Democratic megadonor and Houston trial lawyer Amber Mostyn, who gave $1.3 million to federal candidates and super PACs in the 2012 election and thousands more to state-level candidates in Texas, said the lack of women donors “absolutely” affects policy.

“It’s like picking a football team and getting them to kick a field goal the other way,” said Mostyn, who serves as the chairwoman of Annie’s List — which supports Democratic women candidates in Texas — and founding member of the finance council for the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Ready for Hillary.

Mostyn, whose husband, Steve, is also a trial lawyer and top donor , said she doesn’t mind staying under the radar, but her husband did receive much more attention for their donations in 2012.

“I don’t feel slighted. People who work with us know Steve and I are both equally involved. But when the attention is concerned, it’s hard for me because if we make a donation even if it’s in my name, the articles will say Steve gave or the Mostyns together gave.”

( PHOTOS: Best images of the 2012 campaign)

Dr. Adelson was not immediately available to comment for this story.

Although some women wrote large checks for the first time in 2012, and many more gave on the grass-roots level, they still lagged far behind male donors at all levels.

Of the top 100 overall donors, 11 were women — four Republicans and seven Democrats — and they contributed about 17 percent of the total amount given by those 100 donors, according to a POLITICO review of Federal Election Commission reports and data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

And the discrepancy continues down the line. Of the top 31,000 donors — whose contributions totaled $12,950 or more — women accounted for 28 percent of the donors, according to the Sunlight Foundation.

The numbers are based on contributions to campaigns, committees and super PACs, and do not include contributions to 501(c)(4) nonprofits such as Americans for Prosperity that are not required to disclose donors.

Although only seven of the 400 richest self-made people in the United States are women, according to Forbes, and women hold far fewer high-level corporate jobs and board seats, donations from women to political causes, parties and candidates has lagged behind men even when controlling for income.

It’s not all about money, top donors and fundraisers say. It’s about opportunity and the political structure.

“The reason women don’t give to politics is because they’re lacking the mentorship and the support that men receive,” said Susie Tomkins Buell, a Democratic megadonor associated with Democracy Alliance — an exclusive group of top liberal donors.

“But once they get invited in, they feel very empowered by the act,” she added. “My pitch to women is usually getting them to understand, ‘What do you care about and what are you doing to protect it?’”

Lisa Spies, who served as the director for Women for Romney Victory, said that women don’t usually write big checks for a simple reason: They’re not asked as often as men.

“They don’t want to be Mrs. John Doe,” Spies said. “They want to be Jane Doe.”

Spies’s fundraising team, which raised $27 million in the 2012 cycle, focused solely on high-dollar women donors, while a separate team raised money from small-dollar women donors.

“I was a bit nervous about it because women aren’t accustomed to big checks and bundling,” Spies said. “We actually were very surprised by how well we did. Women loved being taken seriously in that way.”

While the Romney and Obama campaigns courted women donors last year, Spies acknowledged that their success hasn’t translated into off-year contributions in the same way men are encouraged to give, which keeps them from becoming a larger part of the process.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and consultant who has done research and polling on female political giving, said some of the issue is simply a distaste for the process. “Politics is the one area of shopping and spending money that women do not dominate,” Lake said. “They don’t like the influence game in politics.”

“They want to be shown a real basis that convinces them that it’s not risky and that it’s a good quality candidate,” Mostyn added. “Women demand more for their money.”

Many politically active women choose instead to get involved on the local level by volunteering or donating to charities that they are passionate about. A woman who cares about preventing domestic violence, for instance, is much more likely to donate to a charity than a political candidate.

“If you look at political giving, men give for a piece of the action,” said Bennett of the Women’s Campaign Fund. Women “want to change the world,” but “they see charitable giving as the way to do that — not political giving.”

“Women are more close to the home and less nationally oriented in their political activity,” said Susan Gore, who gave more than $500,000 in 2012 — mostly to a pro-Rick Santorum super PAC.

Women who do regularly contribute tend to give in small increments over a long period of time, keeping them out of the spotlight, as their male counterparts drop millions in just one election cycle.

EMILY’s List, which is funded by mostly women donors, has raised $350 million over a period of 28 years — about the same amount as the top 200 male donors gave last year in a single election — according to the group. But the organization, which backs Democratic women, has seen an increase in big checks in recent years, especially through its super PAC, Women Vote, and it has seen more donations so far in the 2014 cycle than at this point in any other cycle.

“Over the past 28 years, women have supported our cause because they know their dollar invested produces results of more women running and more women winning,” said Stephanie Schriock, President of EMILY’s List, in a statement.

There are signs the status quo won’t last forever. If Hillary Clinton decides to run for president in 2016, women are expected to narrow the fundraising gap even more and shatter their past giving totals on both sides.

“There has never been more female donors than male donors,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who recently endorsed Clinton. “It’s getting better. If you go back and look at the history over the last 20 years, you will see more and more women getting involved. Do we need more women? Of course. And do I think Hillary Clinton’s campaign will inspire everyone including lots of women? You bet.”

But McCaskill, whose reelection was boosted by her opponent Todd Akin’s controversial remarks on abortion, denied that lack of women donors affects policy in Congress. “No,” she said. “If you look, now we’ve got 20 women here in the Senate and that’s a much bigger number from when I even arrived only six years ago. So we’re making progress, we just have to make sure we keep building on it.”

Other policy developments — from Wendy Davis’s 13-hour filibuster of an abortion bill in Texas to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s push for dealing with sexual assaults in the military — could also inspire more women to give.

“Women are already more involved because of what Wendy did. There are scores of organizations who will say their donations increased this week,” Mostyn said, adding that her organization, Annie’s List, which is backed mostly by women donors, received money from nearly 200 new donors in the three days following the filibuster.

“Wendy caught their attention and now we have to keep it,” she added.