The research on women at the provincial level, where we've had women party leaders who've often come out of cabinet, suggests that, first of all, there's a problem with women's recognition in many fields, not just politics. Knowing how you move up is often not clear. One problem suggested by Canadian research as well as comparative research is that party insiders are often using different metrics to assess the effectiveness of women versus men politicians.
Look at women politicians at the provincial level, some of whom managed to win majority governments for their parties. I think of Catherine Callbeck in P.E.I. and Kathy Dunderdale in Newfoundland. Kathleen Wynne in Ontario did win a majority government, which we often forget. The impatience of party insiders with these women is significantly greater than it is for men in the same position, just as there's the assumption that we can never have another woman leader. In other words, all women are therefore guilty of her supposed ineffectiveness, yet we never hear people say that we'll never have another male leader because he lost us power or caused the party to be weakened.