'My Nan waited 40 years to vote for a female Liberal leader. It's time, Australia'

My grandmother was 96 years old when she died, but she had one simple political rule she lived by.

When Laurel Paul Maiden voted in elections, she looked for good, strong, female candidates. 

It was a silent protest at the world she had grown up in, where it was regarded as scandalous she had gone to live in a flat by herself chasing a life of independence selling shoes. Or, that she had not married until quite late by the standards of the day.

By 1990, she got her chance to vote for the Liberals’ Chris Gallus in Glenelg, in the marginal seat of Hindmarsh, arguing it was “about time they had more women in Canberra”. 

RELATED: 'It's no wonder Australian women are reluctant to get into politics'

It’s a sentiment the Liberal Party is banking on as it searches for a replacement for Malcolm Turnbull in the seat of Wentworth. And it’s backed by internal polling that suggests a female candidate will add a potentially game changing four per cent to the Liberals’ vote.  

Frontrunner Andrew Bragg has dropped out of the race, insisting it's time for a woman.

He described the resignation of Victorian Liberal Julia Banks from political life over allegations of bullying as disgraceful and shocking.

Three women are in the running for Liberal preselection in Wentworth — Woollahra councillor Mary-Lou Jarvis, Sydney East Business Chamber chair Katherine O’Regan, and rheumatologist Maxine Szramka.

It was enough to make one male candidate release an email to preselectors begging them not to discount him because he’s a man. 

Others have been critical of the cynicism that a woman, any woman, will do in Wentworth. 

Does anyone really suggest every male politician in Parliament got their on merit? Or that every Nationals MP deserves their to be in the ministry when they have a quote for country MPs - just not female ones? 

Some suggest Scott Morrison is also insisting on a female candidate, mainly to fix the Liberals’ so called “woman problem”.

RELATED: Why Julie Bishop's loss has been felt by every woman in politics

But the simple facts are women often perform better in electorate contests than a man in a suit. This is a blessing and a curse, often condemning women to run in tough marginal seats. 

It’s one of the reasons the Labor Party’s own quota insists women secure a percentage of winnable seats to ensure female representation is actually boosted. 

It’s a world 1960s Australia could barely imagine, when women weren’t asked about voting intentions in surveys because it was assumed they would vote as their husbands did.

LISTEN: Jamila Rizvi explores what it will take for woman to finally smash the glass ceiling. (Post continues.)