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I am woman. Hear me roar. All the way to the ballot box.

This political season, on both sides of the border, the question can legitimately be asked: Have female voters become the Deciders?

When it comes to women and politics, something new is afoot and, to the shock of some analysts, it transcends ideology. It's the mere sight of women doing battle at the highest levels that is turning female voters on.

First, Hillary Clinton made those infamous 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. Now Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has been dubbed Xena, the Warrior Princess, is proving so far that inexperience, a questionable track record, a limited grasp of issues and some distinctly anti-feminist views do not appear to take away from her enormous appeal to female voters.

This is especially true of white women with small children at home, among whom, a recent Newsweek poll reported, there has been a whopping 11-per-cent shift to the McCain-Palin ticket.

While Americans scramble to make sense of the Palin phenomenon, we've had our own small hear-me-roar moment here starring Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who cleverly enlisted what she called the non-partisan citizenry to muscle her way onto the televised leader debates.

It wasn't a feminist issue per se, but you can bet the spectacle of three of those four bland-white-guy party leaders denying her a place in the debates evoked something visceral for many female voters that may continue a slow burn all the way to election day.

Maclean's magazine reports that the Liberals under Stéphane Dion are losing their long-held edge with female voters, with polls showing women - who have so far been immune to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's charms - plan to vote this time for the Tories. Women may well give Mr. Harper his majority.

Clearly, women's votes are up for grabs in a way they haven't been before.

There has always been a gender gap in voting, but it's because women have paid attention in the past to different issues than men - little things like health care, education and who's going to help look after the kids while they work.

It doesn't mean women always vote for women. But, according to political scientist David Docherty, dean of arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, even Ms. May, whose speech at the outset of the campaign he calls "the most emotional and riveting," is tapping into something that a male leader of the Greens may not have been able to to gain entry to the leaders' debates.

While some may see it as tokenism or sexism, male politicians can no longer ignore the draw of a powerful female politician. A distraught Barack Obama adviser, in trying to make sense of a scenario supporters could not have envisaged in their worst nightmare, told The Sunday Times of London that, "at the end of the day, women are sick of men running everything. They're thinking, 'Enough already.' "

In light of grim polling numbers, Mr. Obama's campaign was planning to devote this week to women's issues. (The shockingly faltering U.S. economy may have changed that.)

Though nothing the Democrats could do would top what the fearless female co-hosts on the daytime talk show The View pulled off last week: Joy Behar accused John McCain to his face of telling lies; Whoopi Goldberg, responding to Mr. McCain's declaration that he wanted to appoint Supreme Court justices who interpret the Constitution strictly, acidly asked him whether she should worry that slavery might be coming back. Even the candidate's wife, Cindy McCain, said later, "they picked our bones clean."

It was an immensely satisfying moment, an unexpectedly tough display of brute female force. Women just don't seem to be so well-behaved any more. Nor should they be. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is about changing the game.

As for Xena, like many women I could never support a candidate who believes, as Ms. Palin does, that women should not have access to abortion even in the case of rape or incest. And that's just the tip of the Palin iceberg for me.

Many women I know could also never vote for a man who thought he could win them over simply by donning a cozy sweater and mumbling about family values.

Other women clearly have different priorities. They may see Mr. Harper as a better custodian of the economy.

Deciders or not, in this country, women have a way to go before we have real power. That will only happen when a prime minister fills even 30 per cent of his cabinet with women (as Mr. Harper has decidedly not, with a stingy six female ministers), or when half of all candidates for political office are women (Mr. Dion is proud of the fact that a third of Liberal candidates are female) and when, of course, a highly qualified woman stands an even chance of becoming our next prime minister.

The only thing that binds all women together in these two fascinating campaigns is the desire to see themselves competing for office at the highest levels. The end result may well be that it won't feel like a legitimate campaign any more without a woman in the race.

Now that would be a game changer.