Fly Or Die

The "no girls allowed" sign is becoming rarer and rarer. Economic study can't hang that sign anymore and neither can French presidential elections (read Segolene Royale), and the same goes for computer engineering. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Susan Athey, a Harvard economics professor, won a formerly males only award. Athey is the recipient of the John Bates Clark medal, a highly coveted award for the "most promising economist under the age of 40" according to the Journal. Athey's rise began with her dissertation on people's reaction to rising uncertainty and since then she has worked with the Canadian government on designing timber auctions and also studying how "to deepen and make more elegant the theories and methods economists use to model and measure the real world," the article also said. Athey isn't the only leading woman in her field or world leader.
The appeal of these superstars is not that they wear their womanhood as some kind of badge or identifier so that when they do succeed and surpass a man in a traditionally male dominated field they "can further equality" by noting that they are women. In academia, their respect is earned like any other's.
In politics this is a little different because the appeal of groups of people are at stake so someone different than the usual candidate has to acknowledge the difference but that candidate is, just like in academia, more appealing if the platform is themed on something other than "I'm brave enough to be different than everyone else."