Danielle Kurtzleben

Democrat Amy McGrath is running heavily on her military record in Kentucky's 6th Congressional District. In her announcement video, she tells the story of how, as a girl, she was told that women couldn't fly in combat — and how that fired her up to eventually do just that.

Months ago, I was asked to review Rebecca Traister's Good And Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger.

"What timing," I thought, as I read the book while red-robed handmaidens protested Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination confirmation hearings.

Lauren Underwood, Democratic House candidate in Illinois' 14th district, is part of a record boom of women running for office in 2018 – from Congress to governorships to state legislatures across the country.

But she didn't just wake up one day and decide this was the year.

Editor's note: NPR is examining the role of women in the 2018 midterm elections all week. To follow upcoming coverage and look back at how the role of women in the 2014 midterms was covered, click here.

Women represent 20 percent of Congress members right now, and Republicans and Democrats differ sharply on why that's the case, not to mention how big of a problem that is.

That in and of itself is perhaps unsurprising, especially at a time when the parties are heavily divided on a wide variety of topics. But a new poll shows that men and women within each party — and especially among Republicans — differ heavily on several of these questions.

In October of 2013, the federal government shut down for 16 days — the third longest shutdown in history. A few women in particular came together to end the gridlock, including Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

With Tuesday's primaries, women have hit another milestone in this record-breaking political year, setting a new record for the number of women who have secured a major party nomination for the U.S. House.

Democrats and Republicans have nominated 185 women to run for the House in November, as of Wednesday morning, according to the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The figure breaks the prior record of 167 nominees set in 2016.

Thirteen socialists walk into a West Virginia bar.

It's a Saturday evening in early July, and the North Central West Virginia chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is getting together at a brewery outside of Rivesville.

Everyone here has their own stories for how they came to socialism. For chapter co-founder Kelley Rose, a 36-year-old who works for a nonprofit helping young adults stay in school and find jobs, religion played a big part.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has electrified Democratic Party activists, not only by pulling off a major political upset in New York's 14th Congressional District primary this week but with her progressive politics, working-class roots, and background as a Latina.