By Dr. Marciene Mattleman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - During March, Women’s History Month, there’s lots of counting – how few, how much, how many….And the numbers from 2011 show that there were 12 female chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies, three less than the year before.

Of the boards of those companies, fewer than 20% are women. Candidates are working hard to gain the women’s vote, yet in the 2008 presidential election, 34% of women didn’t vote.

In many businesses, women do the same work as men, yet women earn about 81 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

Only 17% of the seats in Congress are filled by women. With the largest backslide in 30 years, 10 incumbent women lost their seats. Nancy Pelosi, as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, however, was an historic first.

Leaders Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook and Carol Bartz at Yahoo are headliners in social media and listen, carefully this year. “Yes We Can,” has become a mantra for women.