BOSTON—The defeat of Martha Coakley in last week's special election to fill the Senate seat that was held by Edward M. Kennedy has reignited the debate over whether there is a glass ceiling for women in Massachusetts politics.

“;Welcome to liberal Massachusetts. We're not,”; said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic political consultant. “;And if you didn't believe it before, anyone who thinks that Massachusetts is liberal in light of Tuesday's results need only look at the record and lack of success women have had in Massachusetts politics. That should just put it away for good.”;

For decades, women have been unable to gain a solid political toehold in Massachusetts, a state long dominated by male political figures. Five women in Massachusetts' history—including Coakley, the attorney general—have been elected to statewide constitutional office, and three have been elected to the House of Representatives.

Currently, Coakley, Rep. Niki Tsongas and the state Senate president, Therese Murray are the only women to hold high elective office.

“;Women in Massachusetts have had a hard time winning statewide office and holding it if they got it,”; said Dan Payne, a Democratic strategist. One reason, he said, is that there are not enough women running at lower political levels to move up.

Murray, the first female Senate president and the 16th woman elected to the body since 1790, has been cultivating a network of politically involved women to run for local office or raise money for female candidates through forums and mentoring groups. And in Cambridge, Mass., the Barbara Lee Family Foundation analyzes the role of women in politics and writes guidebooks to help them get elected.

“;I think the guys have done a better job with having a pipeline and a team effort in the past,”; Murray said. “;We're in the process of making it strong for women, and we have to make it stronger.”;

But doing so has been particularly difficult.

“;Massachusetts is a place where there have been just a few groups that have defined the political field, and I've never heard of women being a concern,”; said Swanee Hunt, the founding director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and the U.S. ambassador to Austria from 1993 to 1997.

“;For women to run, they have to break through the way things have been done,”; said Hunt, who currently is the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at the Kennedy School.

Payne said he believed that women had given Coakley a late push in her primary victory against three male opponents. But he said Coakley never mentioned her gender or that she would have been the state's first female U.S. senator, while Scott Brown, her opponent, ran “;a macho, testosterone campaign,”; driving around the state in a pickup truck.

Shannon O'Brien, a former state treasurer who lost to Mitt Romney in her 2002 bid to become governor, said many in Massachusetts and around the country still do not see women in boardrooms and executive suites or holding high political office.

“;When you close your eyes and think of a governor or a president, immediately a picture comes to mind, for many people that is not a woman,”; O'Brien said. She said she remembered being judged harshly because of her gender, and recalled a man who wrote a letter criticizing her for having a baby while in office.

“;There were reminders that you were perceived differently,”; O'Brien said. “;It's harder to hang on to those positive feelings people had once that doubt is planted. It's more difficult for women to recover. You have to work harder to credential yourself, and it's easier for women to lose support when negative attacks happen.”;

Kerry Healey, who was lieutenant governor under Romney, won the Republican Party's nomination for governor in 2006 but lost the general election to her opponent, Deval Patrick.

Healey said that she found it more difficult to be a Republican than a woman politician in Massachusetts. But she added that the bruising political climate here made running for office less attractive to many women.

“;Politics in Massachusetts is a blood sport,”; she said, “;and that fact alone may deter many women who might consider seeking elected office in a milder political climate.”;

“;Women know that choosing a career in politics may damage their economic security, family or reputation,”; Healey said. “;Women need to be made more comfortable taking those risks.”;