Martha Coakley didn’t lose to Brown because she is female. She lost because voters decided he was the better candidate. Still, it’s fair to wonder whether any woman could pass the Massachusetts test for higher office. Those who try are judged too imperfect. Yet who hasn’t voted for an imperfect man?

Four Bay State women have served in Congress; none in the Senate. US Representative Niki Tsongas of Lowell, the only woman now in the delegation, is the widow of a US senator. Two Democratic women and two Republican women who ran for governor ended up as political cartoons.

Remember Evelyn Murphy? As lieutenant governor in the administration of Governor. Michael Dukakis, she was the first woman in Massachusetts history to hold statewide office. When she ran for governor in 1990, she was cast as a female Dukakis, minus the warmth. She has a Phd in economics. But the Boston Herald made muscle tone, not mental muscle, an issue by publishing an unflattering photo of her running on a Florida beach. Murphy finally dropped out of the Democratic primary a week before election day.

Republican Jane Swift went from well-regarded state senator to lieutenant governor in the administration of Governor Paul Cellucci. She became acting governor when Cellucci resigned. After a few mistakes involving aides and helicopters, the media showcased her as a dumb hack who couldn’t lose the baby weight after giving birth to twins. Her stay-at-home husband was also savaged.

Mitt Romney shoved Swift aside to run for governor in 2002. His opponent was Shannon O’Brien, the Bay State’s first female state treasurer. He quickly packaged her as a dumb Democratic hack, whose lobbyist husband was further proof of unworthiness for office.

Romney chose Kerry Healey, a Harvard-educated criminologist, as his lieutenant governor, then ignored her. When Healey ran for governor against Deval Patrick, she was dubbed “Muffy’’ by Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, and depicted as a ditzy socialite financed by a hedge-fund hubby.

Coakley, the first woman elected attorney general in Massachusetts, entered the Senate race with high favorability ratings.

She had a reputation for taking on child abusers. She won a huge settlement from Big Dig contractors and millions from Wall Street bankers. Yet by the end of the campaign, she, too,was reduced to a caricature - an empty pantsuit with thin lips.

Massachusetts is not kind to losers, as Dukakis knows from his loss to George H.W. Bush in 1988. The fallout for Coakley could be even harsher. She lost a seat that was held by a Kennedy family member or associate since 1952, to a Republican who threatens to derail President Obama’s national agenda.

She made serious campaign mistakes, from ads to attitude. She couldn’t prosecute her own case and never really tried. She had no message and Brown did. His could be summed up in one word: change.

All that is true. But so is this: Some critiques of Coakley raise depressingly familiar issues for female candidates.

She was Nurse Ratched, cold and aloof. She had dogs, not children. And, where was her husband? A flood of Internet comment was viciously sexist.