The defeat of the French Socialist Party candidate for president, Segolene Royal, seems to have slowed what columnist Dick Morris called "the seemingly irresistible momentum of female candidates worldwide." Indeed, after Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany, Michelle Bachalet won the Chilean presidency and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took Liberia's presidency, it certainly appeared that women were finally getting their due on the world stage.

What the first woman to seek the French presidency signifies (just as the Democratic Party frontrunner for president of the United States, Hillary Clinton does), is that we are finally entering a time when gender is not a prime obstacle for high elected office. The defeat of Ms. Royal was much more attributed to her political stance than the fact that she was a woman. Nicolas Sarkozy defeated her because he represented a change that the French recognized they badly needed. The Socialist agenda promoted more of the same heavy tax, over-regulation to the economy that has seen France increasingly fall behind in world markets. Sarkozy promised a different approach, more free-market based, and this was a vision that the French people voted that they wanted.

One of the four leadership conditions is People, meaning that unless followers desire to follow a particular leader, the leader is powererless to make them do so unless they exert a form of authority. The fact that for centuries men did not recognize women as leaders unfairly kept them from leading in the past. The defeat of Segolene Royal does not herald a return to the old days, but rather a recognition that the leadership capital of the leader is what is being judged today by potential followers - not whether they wear a dress or not.