(FORTUNE Magazine) – Women -- long crowding the pipeline of the political system -- are bursting onto the national scene. Record numbers of them have decided it is time to head for Capitol Hill or take a shot at a governorship. Over 150 have entered races, and more may do so as filing deadlines draw closer. As the examples above show, some are politically seasoned and others comparatively obscure. They include Michele Dyson, who runs her own computer services firm in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is the Republican candidate for one of the state's eight congressional seats. Says she: ''What we're seeing now is a movement on the part of women not to sit back and wait for others to do things. I think I decided to run when I found myself saying, 'Why wasn't somebody else addressing the issue?' '' Most candidates still have primaries ahead of them -- and some are facing other women. Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential candidate, is vying with New York City comptroller Liz Holtzman for the New York Senate seat held by two-term Republican Alfonse D'Amato. The women candidates running for governor in Montana, New Hampshire, and Missouri also face primaries. What fueled this burst of activity? A powerful motivation for many was the disconcerting spectacle of Anita Hill being grilled by 14 male Senators during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings last October. Says Jane Danowitz, executive director of the bipartisan and pro-choice Women's Campaign Fund: ''For the first time, women were allowed to see inside the corridors of power, and they didn't like what they saw.'' Donations to the fund have since doubled to some $80,000 a month. In Pennsylvania, newcomer Lynn Yeakel stole the Democratic Senate nomination from Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel after reminding voters throughout her campaign of what many women -- and men -- perceived to be distasteful questioning of Hill by two-term incumbent Arlen Specter. Yeakel will run against Republican Specter in the fall in one of the country's most closely watched races.