Was sexism a factor in the downfall of Alberta Premier Alison Redford?

Alberta Premier Alison Redford had barely walked out of legislature rotunda after announcing Wednesday she was stepping down when some observers began playing the gender card.

Redford, whose resignation takes effect Sunday evening, is the third Alberta premier to be shown the door in less than 10 years by the long-ruling Progressive Conservative party. The decision came after weeks of internal turmoil over her travel-spending habits and leadership style.

The tipping point appeared to be the $45,000 price tag of Redford's trip to South Africa for her friend Nelson Mandela's memorial, along with other questionable uses of government aircraft. After defending the spending decisions for weeks, while at the same time apologizing for the way they were made, Redford paid back the money. But the damage was done.

The controversy opened a festering sore within her caucus. Two MLAs – a backbencher and a junior minister – defected. Departing Calgary MLA Len Webber complained Redford was a bully and subject to tantrums. At least 10 more were said to be considering leaving the PC caucus.

[ Related: Alberta premier calls it quits amid caucus turmoil ]

The party executive moved swiftly, telegraphing that Redford could face a non-confidence vote from riding-association presidents. She got the message and announced she was quitting.

Some news reports pointedly noted that the party had forced out Alberta's first woman premier after less than 900 days as leader. It's been barely two years since Redford's resounding come-from-behind election victory to extend the Conservatives' four-decade hold on power.

The insinuation the party had lost patience with its first female boss because of her sex surfaced quickly on social media.

How much did gender politics play in Redford's ouster?

Only three of 19 members of Alberta's executive council – the premier and cabinet – are women, including Redford. In the PC caucus, 18 of its 59 pre-defection members were women. But one of the disgruntled MLAs who left was female: associate minister Donna Kennedy-Glans, who complained Redford embodied the party's culture of entitlement.

Despite the fact five of 10 provinces were led by women at one point, and B.C., Ontario and Quebec still have female leaders, some observers say women on top are treated differently from men.

“I think people who claim that gender no longer matters don’t understand how politics works,” University of Calgary political scientist Brenda O’Neill told Global News. “It’s not explicit, people aren’t explicitly sexist in the way they treat politicians nowadays.”

Some say traits often seen as desirable in male leaders – resolve, toughness, aloofness even – apparently aren't welcome in their female counterparts. Someone said the behaviour of Redford, who was a respected constitutional lawyer before entering politics, was "unladylike."

“It’s a combination of character, management, political ideology and yes, gender,” Opposition Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman told the Calgary Herald, explaining the premier's ouster.

“This is an old boy’s club and it’s very resistant to change. I still see them as the 1950s. And their whole image of what a 1950s woman was is still pretty ingrained.”

But Kennedy-Glans argued Redford's sex had nothing to do with her fate.

“It’s not about a person’s gender, it’s just not that simple,” she told the Herald. “It was a lack of respect for the little things, and getting under the skin of people, male or female."

[ Related: Alison Redford's resignation shows flawed system, says Naheed Nenshi ]

Melanee Thomas, another University of Calgary political scientist, said Redford's poor connection with Alberta voters and her executive management style did little to foster loyalty. But she said the fact the Tories gave Redford the bum's rush so quickly likely had much to do with her sex.

“Where is the sexism? It’s in the reaction, that was gendered. Every politician is going to make mistakes. It happens. But it’s in the way this party reacted,” she told the Herald. “I’ve never seen a party turn on a leader quite like this.”

Her colleague, Doreen Barrie, told the Calgary Sun, Redford's treatment by her party shows the deck is stacked against women in politics.

“[Late premier] Ralph Klein used to have temper tantrums in public and people forgave him,” she said.

The open caucus revolt, the weekend meeting that effectively put Redford on probation, and the implicit ultimatum contained in the planned non-confidence vote of constituency presidents were humiliating for a sitting premier, said Barrie.

"I can't imagine that happening with any of her predecessors," she said.

My take goes like this: If sexism played a part in Redford's quick exit, it was well buried. With a third of the PC caucus being women, it would be difficult to see that even a coded attack on the premier's gender would fly.

What doesn't fly is comparing Redford to Klein, who won the leadership after two terms as the popular mayor of Calgary and went out of his way to cultivate a man-of-the-people image. But even Klein, who pulled Alberta out of a fiscal morass left by predecessor Don Getty and presided over the erasing of the province's public debt, eventually wore out his welcome.

It's notable that the length of time Tory leaders have had at the helm has declined steadily since 2006, when Klein was pushed into retirement after 14 years. His replacement, Ed Stelmach, served four years and about 10 months before the party forced him to quit. Redford has had about two and a half years.

It seems as if the once reliable method of renewing the PC party by replacing the leader has become tired. As Kennedy-Glans suggested, its problems go deeper than the leader, things that become endemic with a party that's been in power for a very long time.

Expectations were high when Redford arrived. She was seen as a reflection of a more cosmopolitan Alberta, more willing to engage nationally. But she was never able to really sell her vision to the broader public, nor recruit enough MLAs to rally round her when when problems such as the travel-spending flap arose.

Paradoxically, it may even be sexist to attribute the internal coup against Redford to gender bias. It implies she's not responsible for her own downfall, that the decisive forces were external to her leadership.

It's possible that the party, fearful of losing power, was simply reacting to what it saw as a politically-fatal weakness in its leader, just as it did with "Farmer Ed" Stelmach. In the end, it didn't matter if the leader's chromosomes were XX or XY.

A real test will be seeing who steps forward when the leadership race begins in earnest. Will there be a woman among the hopefuls?