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Women who own small businesses — about a third of all small businesses in the United States, in fact — have been pushing for years for a bigger piece of government contracts, which now total $400 billion a year.

But few were happy when the Small Business Administration finally announced new rules in December to ensure that 5 percent of the contracts would go to female-owned businesses.

First, the critics noted, it took seven years for the S.B.A. to develop the rules after Congress ordered the agency to create them in 2000. But perhaps more important to the critics, among them Congressional Democrats and some business groups, the agency listed only four industries — out of 140 — where female-owned businesses could be preferred for contracts.