They march, they sing, they vote: Their issues may have dropped out of the US campaign, but the women are still hanging on in there. Reggie Nadelson reports

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'WOMEN light the way for change/

Hallelujah

And with Bill we will all unite/

Hallelujah . . .'

At the end of a year boldly billed and noisily touted as 'The Year of the Woman', there is now a song. Sing it to the tune of 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore' and you've got an instant anthem for American women who support Bill Clinton for President.

But before I tell you about the new version of 'God Bless America' in which 'crown thy good with brotherhood' becomes 'crown thy good with brother and sisterhood' (sing it very fast), you should know that these new songs are the product of the Clintones.

On Monday the Clintones, a group of 150 females put together by the singer Judy Collins - 'like the invasion of Normandy', she says excitedly - crowded into a New York recording studio. Soon after, the songs were winging their way to 60 US cities and eight foreign countries in time for last night's torchlight parades. Oh, yes, and Lesley Gore, the Sixties pop star, sang: 'It's our party and we'll win if we want to.'

A lot of American women are itching to march and ready to party. In the final weeks of the campaign, women's issues, especially abortion, which was to have been the issue of this presidential campaign, have simply disappeared. Presidential candidates barely mention it; reporters do not ask. In a massive endorsement of Bill Clinton by the New York Times on Sunday, women's issues were not mentioned.

Abortion is, of course, always a problematical issue, for both sides, and at least one woman I know was mad enough to suggest that the candidates might have conspired not to raise it. More sensible, and more cynical, was the representative from the Clinton camp who said the reason the candidate isn't tackling it at the moment is that the Democrats feel they have a 'lock' (as in all locked up) on women's issues.

On the other hand, if the issues seem to be missing, women are not. Currently 106 are running for the House of Representatives, nine for the Senate. In Iowa, for example, many women are meeting to talk about the issues and raise money for candidates. Iowa is voting on an equal rights amendment to its state constitution.

The impact is substantial. So much so that, apparently, the evangelist Pat Robertson sent a letter to the Iowa branch of his Christian Coalition asserting that the vote is a feminist plot to encourage women to, among other things, 'practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians'.

Never have sexual politics been so present in the mainstream in an election year. For many women, Anita Hill was the catalyst. It is one year ago that Ms Hill, an Oklahoma lawyer, charged Clarence Thomas, the candidate for the Supreme Court, with sexual harassment. A skeleton came out of the national closet; some women felt enormous empathy: it had happened to them. But it was the spectacle of the all- male committee of senators haranguing Ms Hill that galvanised so many women. Justice Thomas was confirmed, but Anita Hill had become a genuine heroine.

In choosing between Democrats and Republicans there is usually very little difference in the way men and women vote. But by the beginning of the election campaign in 1992, the gender gap was up to 15 per cent. If 'the gap eventually narrowed', as the Village Voice puts it, it was 'because men were coming to agree with women, not the other way around'.

'The Year of the Woman' has seen bread and butter issues such as child care and family leave; there is the fact that, compared to men, American women still earn only 70 cents on the dollar; and, because of the welfare system, mothers sometimes stay in abusive relationships to receive the extra financial support. When George Bush said he aimed to make abortion illegal, women were frightened. The sight of Mr Bush bonding with the likes of Pat Robertson at the Republican Convention alienated them. So did the Bush 'gag rule' preventing federally funded family planning clinics from even discussing abortion with clients. Attacks on clinics also means there are fewer facilities for abortion. As a result, says Roberta Synal, of Planned Parenthood, 'there has been a rise in (desperately poor) women who, with no access to abortion, carry babies to term, then desert them in hospitals - or garbage cans.'

Bill Clinton has declared he will reverse the gag rule. He is pro-choice. This has given him a tremendous edge over George Bush, whether or not he - Clinton - has the guts to raise these issues a week before the election when his lead has narrowed.

But to American women - marching with torches in hand last night, voting next Tuesday - the current passion for politics is also about style. George Bush, as someone once said, 'reminds every woman of her first husband'. When he ran the CIA he often signed his letters 'Head Spook'. His idea of taking advice in government is 'to bring the fellas together'. He is a frantic sportsman; for politics, he uses sports metaphors] His style is wimpy and macho at the same time. Not only has his boys' club manner failed to play for an awful lot of women, he is generationally out of sync.

On the other hand, there is Bill Clinton. The essence of Sixties man, his daughter, Chelsea, was named for a Joni Mitchell song] He was at Grosvenor Square]] Sometimes he says he's sorry]]] Bill Clinton likes strong women and his wife is probably smarter than he is. In one poll (albeit in the satirical Spy magazine), 70 per cent of respondents said he would make a better lover than George Bush.

In 1992 both candidates were accused of having illicit affairs and, astonishingly, no one seemed to care; like other Americans, women were too worried about the economy.

It's been a bizarre campaign in that what might have passed as details of style have been puffed up with enormous political content. For instance, there was the 'Hillary Factory'. The Republicans portrayed Mrs Clinton as cold, tough and hard, a woman who behaved in unwomanly ways; the Democrats responded by getting her to bake cookies and remove her headband. There was the marketing of Mrs Bush ('Bar') as the grandmother of us all.

Then there was Dan (Family Values) Quayle's attack on Murphy Brown for giving birth out of wedlock last spring. Murphy Brown (played by Candice Bergen) is a fictional character in a television sit-com. Her baby is fictional. In the first programme of the latest series, aired in October, Murphy Brown, a reporter on a current affairs show, took her revenge on the real Dan Quayle by introducing real single-parent families. There were elements of the surreal: around this time it was also alleged that Elvis was one of Bill Clinton's advisers.

In autumn came the debates. Abortion was mentioned only during the vice-presidential debate, in which Ross Perot's running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, said he had his hearing aid turned off. The presidential candidates made barely any reference to women except briefly, in terms of appointments. Taking the moral high ground, Bill Clinton mentioned citations by women's groups for his progressive attitudes; Mr Bush noted that, for his part, he most certainly did have women on his staff, including one whom he called 'a tough boot'; Ross Perot mostly spoke of his four 'beautiful daughters'.

With only a few days left, women are feeling a little disaffected, a bit left out. George Bush, it is felt, has abandoned women. Ross Perot is a nasty little spoiler.

As for Bill Clinton, well, there's a sense that in failing to speak on issues that brought women into his camp in the first place, he is a little too casual. A feeling that, as usual, the sub-text is: we're busy making a revolution, dear; we'll get to you later.

But this is not a revolution. It's an election. And if Bill Clinton wins, he will have to get to us sooner.

Meanwhile, there were the Clintones to give temporary voice to women. There in that studio, as Judy Collins raised her baton, after the discussion about pronouns ('I think we should sing whatever pronouns we feel comfortable with'), the group belted out its anthem one more time: Hallelujah.

(Photograph omitted)