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So many other countries have had female leaders, in fact the U.S. ranks 61st in female representation in government and I think it is startling and sign of a change that needs to be made.

I'm not going to advocate for a female leader who I'm voting for solely on the basis of gender. And I think a lot of people feel that way.

People don't always want to have females as leaders.

But I do not believe that the world would be entirely different if there were more women leaders. Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven't exactly been non-aggressive - including me.

Women are not only deciding the outcome of elections, they serve as important role models for their daughters and other young women - they hold a key to expanding the way in which women value and experience politics.

We have to ask ourselves why younger women don't feel the need to be right up front with their politics. Is that going to set us back or is that itself a sign of progress? I don't know the answer.

If being a woman is a factor politically, it's usually not because of a conscious bias, but because women are a novelty.

There are not many female role models to guide voters, and the tradition that a Southern woman's place is in the home still lingers in some quarters.

It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.

Gender used to be a barrier for women to overcome if they wanted to be in politics, but today in Taiwan the situation is somewhat different. I think there is even a preference for a woman candidate, and in local elections, we have seen that younger, better-educated female candidates are overwhelmingly preferred by the voters.