How to succeed as a female politician

After fighting for more than a century for the right to vote, women are now seizing the right to be elected: Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, President Michelle Bachelet in Chile and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are likely to be followed by Segolene Royal in France. Segolene, as she is now referred to, has recently won the primaries for the Socialist Party. Her victory is exceptional because she, a woman, won against two elephants — two candidates who are part of the all-male political establishment.

In France, the 2000 law on parity, in theory, requires that the political parties present the same number of male and female candidates for the Parliament elections. But the two main parties prefer paying up to 4 million of fines per year rather than having women seated in Parliament. The National Assembly consists only of 12.3 percent women, and therefore fails to reflect the social, economic or cultural values of society.

Before Segolene, no woman had come so close to the sacred altar — the presidency. What do Segolene's, but also Pelosi's, Merkel's or Bachelet's successes teach us on how to be a successful female politician?

1. Be attractive: It is now time for women politicians to be sexy, not to play down their femininity as Margaret Thatcher or Golda Meir did. Merkel has undergone quite a physical transformation since she has become Chancellor. Segolene is undoubtedly the first French candidate to have done so much marketing around her image, looks and lifestyle. Segolene is 53 but looks young, pretty and feminine: She has become excellent magazine-cover material.

2. Chose your partner wisely: Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) met Bill at Yale Law School. Similarly, Segolene met her partner, Francois Hollande, when they were students at Sciences Po and at the Ecole nationale d'administration. He has been the chairman of the Socialist Party since 1997, and he is the one who boosted her political carrier. In fact, Segolene stole her partner's dream of becoming president.

3. Be a good mom: The most highly regarded French newspaper, Le Monde, has called Segolene a "mummy candidate." Indeed Segolene has been introducing herself as the mother of a family of four children. She even said, "I want to do for the children of this country what I was able to do for my own children." The fact that Merkel had no children was seen as a drawback to her election in Germany, and she had to prove that she cared about family. Pelosi has explicitly campaigned as "a mother and a grandmother." She announced that she would interrupt any activity she was doing to rush to the hospital if her pregnant daughter were to give birth during the campaign.

4. Use the female network: Segolene hopes that she will be able to benefit from the wave of female popularity created by the election of a woman in France's neighbor country. For her, a change in politics is possible through a change in the gender of the politicians. Segolene stated that a world ruled by women might be a less violent place in her book "La vérité d'une femme," translated as "The Truth of a Woman." In January 2006, she missed the 10-year anniversary of the death of French President Francois Mitterrand in order to support Bachelet's presidential campaign in Chile — a very controversial move.

5. Don't start with the major political or economical problems: Hillary Clinton was first noticed when, as chair of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, she attempted to raise public awareness of health issues and expand health insurance coverage. Similarly, Segolene started by working on topics that were not at the center of attention. In 1992, she was the minister of environment, focusing on recycling, noise and water pollution. She then worked for the ministry of family and childhood, instituting paternity leave, the week of parents at school and increasing support for children having emotional and physical difficulties. Segolene has cleverly avoided the hatred and critiques that the prime minister, minister of economy and minister of education usually experience.

6. Build a local support base first: Contrary to Clinton who is very popular in New York, Segolene's strength is in the French provinces. The people there appreciate her down-to-earth approach and concern for local issues. She brought new women members into the Socialist party. She is popular and a populist.

"But who will look after the children [if Segolene wins]?" asked Laurent Fabius, a Segolene's rival for the Socialist primaries, only half-joking. Hopefully with the increasing presence of strong women politicians, such comments will slowly disappear. Soleine Leprince, a visiting student, is a history and international and public affairs major from Paris, France. She may be reached at leprince@princeton.