When the late President Mitterrand of France first encountered Mrs Thatcher, he reported back to base: "She has the eyes of Caligula, but the mouth of Marilyn Monroe." Whatever the accuracy of the observation, it is the kind of remark that, in politics, only women are likely to attract. Think about it. "See that Mr Salmond? He has the wit of Hugh Laurie but the figure of Stephen Fry." Not a line you might expect to encounter in the fevered prose of the commentariat.
When the late President Mitterrand of France first encountered Mrs Thatcher, he reported back to base: "She has the eyes of Caligula, but the mouth of Marilyn Monroe." Whatever the accuracy of the observation, it is the kind of remark that, in politics, only women are likely to attract. Think about it. "See that Mr Salmond? He has the wit of Hugh Laurie but the figure of Stephen Fry." Not a line you might expect to encounter in the fevered prose of the commentariat.
But, just a week after Wendy Alexander confirmed she is standing for the Labour leadership in Scotland, everything from her wardrobe to her childcare arrangements has been subjected to forensic examination. Despite the laudable efforts to make Holyrood many more times reflective of the gender balance in society than Westminster, women in Scottish politics still find themselves operating inside a boys' club. And not just within the chamber; the scribes and broadcasters who cover that beat are still overwhelmingly male, and even the newer men among them are not immune to gender-laden cliche.
When Nicola Sturgeon and Roseanna Cunningham contested the deputy leadership of the SNP, some of the accompanying "analysis" read like tabloid fashion captions. It's not a peculiarly Scottish phenomenon, either: there have probably been as many column inches devoted to the adventurous journey undertaken by Hillary Clinton's hair as her stance on the invasion of Iraq. Then there are the different ground rules applied to matters of temperament. Scarcely an article has been written about the prospective Labour leader without lovingly-recounted examples of being "Wendied" - a term concocted to describe her supposed dearth of interpersonal skills and all-round abrasiveness. Yet, if you think about it, there is scarcely a figure of any stature in politics who has not been involved at some juncture in angry exchanges with colleagues, commentators and officials.
The uncomfortable truth is that Wendy Alexander is extremely bright, and there are still plenty of men out there who don't, you might say, have any interpersonal skills when dealing with cleverness clad in a skirt. Whether her self-evident intellectual abilities are matched by the political and management skills and the verbal dexterity necessary for leadership is something we shall find out in the next weeks and months, but she is entitled to be judged by those criteria alone. And she is entitled to hope that politics can move beyond the tired assumption that assertiveness in male leaders translates as shrill aggression in women.
It was no accident that the remarkable number of women in Donald Dewar's first Scottish cabinet found it useful to operate a back-stage sisterhood. They may technically have been rivals, but in practice they found it useful to watch each other's backs. Alexander would do worse, however, than to take a leaf out of the Annabel Goldie school of political exchange and recognise that a little humour goes a very long way.
The press coverage of Jack McConnell's resignation brought equally depressing evidence of the way in which leaders' spouses also find themselves exposed to domestic scrutiny. It is Moira Salmond's good fortune that she is not also in a high-profile job, and she has been very shrewd at only being backed into the limelight as and when she considered it absolutely necessary.
For Bridget McConnell, attempting to pursue a different kind of career path in the public sector, there was a constant double whammy. If any project she set up attracted backing from the Scottish Executive, she found herself charged with wielding inappropriate influence. Yet the truth of the matter is that women in her situation often self-censor from making natural sales pitches for fear of attracting that very accusation. Meanwhile, having not personally stood for election gives no protection from absurd witch-hunts over the cost of your husband's Christmas presents or your choice of holiday companions.
Being a female leader of a political party will be no picnic; being the wife of one isn't either. Some, like Cherie Blair, display such spectacular lack of judgment that it's difficult to locate the sympathy button. Others just get swallowed up and spat out in the casual brutality of the trade. One of the saddest lines in an interview with the outgoing Labour leader was that he had to remember to keep his wedding ring on at all times to avoid speculation about a marital split.
There is, however, another side to this coin. When the SNP leader scored post-election points in the chamber, his principal opponent was male. The chemistry, and the reaction, will change when it's Alex versus Wendy, for these same unreconstructed scribblers have a folk memory about gallantry. As my colleague Iain Macwhirter observed the other night: when Annabel Goldie comes into a room, you find yourself immediately standing up.
See that Annabel? Eyes like Caligula
