AFTER the televised leaders' debates, people were saying that the women had won, and that the group hug between Leanne Wood, Nicola Sturgeon and Green leader Natalie Bennett, while Ed Miliband stood by, limply watching, was a symbolic triumph for a different type of politics.

That embrace was certainly one of the outstanding moments of the General Election campaign. The women triumphed. And the biggest winner - Nicola Sturgeon - didn't just do it by being a leader who took her party to a landslide victory, she did so by capturing hearts and persuading the nation that there was another style of politics, something outside the "old boys" or "male, pale and stale" club that has left so many feeling alienated.

In fact, just under 30 per cent of the MPs voted in last week were female, which is not a significant gain. But on election night, Nicola Sturgeon's continuing politically adept performance was a winner in itself. In Aberdeenshire, Alex Salmond, seemingly stuck in the cut-and-thrust of old-style combative politics, reacted to his party's success by saying: "The Scottish lion has roared this morning across the country".

But Sturgeon offered no roar. Of course, she raised a few victory fists as the results came in: who wouldn't? But there was no triumphalism, no overt ego. "This is not the scenario I would have wanted," she said of the Conservative victory. When she sent out a Twitter statement, it said: "And to those who didn't vote @theSNP yesterday, we

will do our best by you too and seek to win your trust."

Women in this election were not only visible; they were showing the men how to do politics. This was a campaign in which people would talk about the "Sturgeon effect". The commentator who described the SNP leader as "the most dangerous woman in politics", succeeded only in affirming just how effective she was.

For many in England, where they thought Alex Salmond was the SNP, Sturgeon came as a surprise. For most Scots, however, there was no revelation. They had seen her coming. Some of them had already had their selfies taken with her, others simply referred to her as "Nicola", still others were gradually being convinced.

In the 2010 General Election campaign, when the main party leaders were all men, much of the coverage was devoted to them, or their wives, so often reeled out for photo-calls. As Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender at Bristol University, points out, back then, women "were used as signals, ways of making their male partners look electable". This time, she says: "Women leaders have been on our screens and that has been a good thing. We've got to see more of them." And significantly, she points out, they have "performed expertly".

"That's really important," adds Childs, "because they were showing, in the way that Margaret Thatcher did, that women can do the job." Anyone who doubted Nicola Sturgeon could take over from Alex Salmond as First Minister and party leader has been proved entirely wrong. She has been more popular, and often more effective, than her predecessor. Perhaps this should be no surprise. Former MSP and Women For Independence founder Carolyn Leckie believes that women often have to be better to "be seen and to be heard and to have an impact, and to be recognised". That, she says, is "what has happened in this election. Nicola Sturgeon is very clearly better than the men. She's head and shoulders above them".

Sturgeon's ability has, says Leckie, been honed by her "immersion" in the independence campaign. "Doing all the streets up and down the country, hundreds and hundreds of public meetings, has meant she has really been in touch with the mood on the ground, in touch with people. So she hasn't needed any help from spin doctors or

special advisers. She's got that touch because she is in touch with the zeitgeist. And the rest of them are not."

There is no doubt that the Sturgeon effect has been a factor in the SNP success. Stirling University sociology professor Kirstein Rummery speculates that many No voters who have now come over to the SNP were lured by her. "Partly they were inspired be the difference Nicola Sturgeon made in the leaders' debates and the different style of leadership that she was showing. The male leaders were all doing combative politics, trying to outdo each other and shoot down each other's records. She and Leanne Wood were focusing on the policy, what their parties would do and the values."

All too often election campaigns have been mostly about watching the men. And this was to some extent still the case this year, as we were assailed with a contrived and orchestrated series of macho stunts. Sarah Childs lists some of them: "Cameron doing an all-nighter. Clegg driving up and down the country. I just think, 'What are they trying to prove? That they can stay up all night?' It's as if they're trying to prove their masculinity." Childs believes we have to change this notion of politics being about virility or stamina. "If we want a more representative politics, we've got to accept that politicians can be a bit more like us and not engage in what I think are rather ridiculous stunts."

Meanwhile, Sturgeon seemed to be conducting a very different type of campaign which was genuinely about meeting and greeting people. Childs notes: "She came across as someone who was prepared to speak to ordinary people." Her image has been one of "normalcy and humanity".

Former Conservative minister Edwina Currie was impressed by Sturgeon's approach. "I think it's not so much that the women leaders are women," she tells me, "as that they approach politics with a punchy, no-holds-barred style, and will go fearlessly to the voters instead of to synthetically selected audiences.

"She reminds me strongly of Margaret Thatcher, who, like her, had nothing to lose and everything to gain from old-fashioned campaigning.

"It's the men who now appear wimps, too scared of the electorate to expose themselves. They've been over-managed."

All too often, those macho main-party leaders seemed strangely, though perhaps rightly, scared of the public.

"There's been a fair amount of media debate on how the male leaders have been kept away from the public eye," says Childs. "Everything has been choreographed and the places haven't been places where ordinary people really are."

Sturgeon, by contrast, pledged to be "the most accessible First Minister ever", and in this election she came across as that: a good hugger of babies, adults and children, who even manages her own Twitter account. Of course, all the leaders were hugging babies and doing photo-calls with nurseries, but somehow Sturgeon seemed more genuine in the role - partly, perhaps, that's a sad indictment on current gender stereotyping. "There's something about a woman holding a baby that looks nice," says Kirstein Rummery, "and something about Ed Miliband holding a baby, even though he's a dad, and she's not a parent. It's a strange thing."

One of the biggest indicators of Sturgeon's effectiveness has been the media backlash against her: the stream of sexist caricatures and photo-shopped images, including The Sun's wrecking-ball image. For Childs, this backlash is telling: "If she wasn't good, if she wasn't constituting a threat to the main political leaders, they probably would have left her marginalised, or not bothered with her. By having to attack her, they're revealing just how effective a political operator she is." Perhaps this was what Sturgeon meant by saying "the most dangerous woman" line was "the nicest thing the Daily Mail has ever said about me".

Have these women leaders gone any way towards helping to feminise politics? Certainly, research shows that greater numbers of female politicians tend to lead to more pro-women policies. But what we mean by "a different style of politics" is more difficult to pin down. "You have to be careful that you don't present women as nice, caring, sharing politicians or people. Or suggest that women will do politics differently or better than men," says Childs. Meanwhile, Rummery notes: "[Labour's] Kezia Dugdale, Ruth Davidson [Conservative] and Nicola Sturgeon do not pull their punches in the Scottish Parliament. It's not that they're not able to do combative-style politics. It's not like women come in and it becomes all fuzzy and pink and huggy. They certainly can stand up for themselves."

Meryl Kenny, lecturer in government and politics at Leicester University, believes there is evidence that male and female politicians may work in different ways. "They bring different issues to the policy process and they also bring a different style to politics, one that that might be more co-operative rather than masculine and adversarial like we have in the House of Commons. Not all women. And not all men. But certainly there is evidence that women do sometimes work in different ways."

Carolyn Leckie points out that it is worth, in any case, challenging the "socially, culturally masculine way of doing it". "Women shouldn't have to behave in a masculine way to be involved in politics. What we need is a politics that is different from that, and embraces all sorts of people and is inclusive of all sorts of people. I think there's a mood for people to be more co-operative and consensual, to try and find solutions, make things work, be friendly and open across traditional party structures."

Devolution has already brought a different political culture to Scotland, with more women in the Scottish Parliament than at Westminster. We have already seen, at its high point, three parties led by women. "Women," says Meryl Kenny, "are a normalised feature of Scottish politics. But at Westminster I think women are still very much treated as Space Invaders. Having women in prominent positions and as prominent political role models has a huge symbolic effect. It will have a knock-on effect in terms of political engagement and may also encourage more women to stand for office.

This election, Scotland sends to Westminster 20 women MPs: a 34 per cent female representation. These figures might not be astounding, but they include a promising diversity. At 20, Mhairi Black is the youngest MP in centuries, and emerged as a star of both the campaign and of the election night. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh was the first Scottish Muslim woman to be voted in.

Meanwhile, however, there have also been losses. Key figures who have made great moves in terms of women's issues in the House of Commons - Anne Begg, Jo Swinson and Margaret Curran - have fallen in this Labour and LibDem collapse.

When Sturgeon became First Minister, I celebrated, but expressed my doubts about what it ultimately meant for women. Just six months down the line it's clear how significant it is. Kirstein Rummery believes the best thing that happened for women's politics in Scotland has been "Nicola Sturgeon taking over as First Minister. She was such a great First Minister - with a different style of leadership, a different style of politics from her predecessor". In other words, she was the best thing not just because she was a woman, but because she did it so well, and connected with so many.