Joan of Arc's intuition

Julia, Quentin, Sarah, Hillary, and Julie - women are on the rise - Opinion

Has this year proved to be the year of the woman? Ever since Joan of Arc's intuition ended in English flames, women with political capital have too often lacked personal and public encouragement to make it to the top.

Some parts of the world have been more welcoming than others, such as New Zealand, the progressive Scandinavians and Britain (if you count Margaret Thatcher), but in others supposed gender drawbacks have proved more resilient.

But it does seems a handful of nagging stereotypes have finally lost momentum. America has long prided itself on being a global paragon, but hasn't always been a guiding light when it comes to the question of what women can do for their countrymen. Hillary Clinton turned all the tables as the first woman to run credibly for the White House, hoping to create a precedent by passing the presidency from one spouse to another instead of father to son. At least that was the plan.

There were pants suit jokes and a nutcracker doll on the BBC's Graham Norton Show, and while parts of the American media (Fox News in particular) may never give up the undercurrent of misogyny, it was surely overwhelmed by Clinton's performance. Though her campaign stopped short of a victory lap, her loss to a charismatic and media-savvy opponent did not detract from the gains made for women.

The theory that 2008 was the year of women was supported by proceedings in Europe. Carla Bruni, wife of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, admirably survived reports detailing anyone she'd ever consorted nude with.

As a former model who suddenly became the First Lady of France, she was scrutinised to an extent that has often derailed women with a past and a "list" of exes that doesn't perfectly match the status they now occupy.

The "list" is one of the most blatant double standards women have long been expected to live by: sexual etiquette dictates that women should divide their number of exes by three, while men should multiply it by the same number. Instead, Bruni sang about her metaphorical "chrysanthemum", 30 lovers, and publicly remarked: "I'm monogamous occasionally but I prefer polygamy and polyandry."

Her survival of the controversy was an important change for women, rather than just Bruni, but then the French have always been less hypocritical about sexual scandal. Can you imagine Cindy McCain crooning about a rose, or chrysanthemum, by any other name?

Closer to home, female politicians haven't always fared so well in Australia's parliaments. Margaret Thatcher's visit in 1976 preceded an increase of women entering politics, but many have since fallen by the wayside when they might have gone further. Cheryl Kernot and Joan Kirner were prime examples of those who were prematurely emasculated.

This year, precedents were finally set by the first female Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the first female Opposition spokeswoman on Treasury matters, Julie Bishop, and the first female Governor-General, Quentin Bryce. The politics of religion were also updated by the ordination of the nation's first female Anglican bishop. That it took so long for women to be appointed by male leaders is a qualification to the obvious progress, but, still, they've made it.

The coming years will demonstrate the strength and influence of these changes, but if we as a nation play our cards right, this cultivation of women's heightened involvement won't be short lived.

The disheartening exception and the most aberrant and atypical star of the year was Sarah Palin. Only outshone by the focus on Barack Obama, the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee destroyed two of the givens associated with the political women of America. Firstly, she disproved the belief that the first woman to run the final leg of the race for high office would be a feminist. Secondly, and more usefully, she debunked the myth that women, once presented with a chromosomally similar candidate, would vote as a mass. Palin may yet be a phoenix, but never a feminist.

Whatever the gains of the past year, these women - who by no means are as united by their political sentiments as they are their biology (or "fun pouch", as The Jon Stewart Show would have it) - will only be properly valued if there's more of the same in 2009.