(HOST) Democrat Hillary Clinton is ahead of all the other major presidential candidates in fundraising so far, but commentator Madeleine Kunin thinks that gender bias is still a challenge.

(KUNIN)The morning after I was elected governor in 1984 my family and I went to visit the governor's office in the Vermont State House. I stepped inside the beautiful ornate room and stared at the somber portraits of the men who had preceded me. They stared back.

"What are you doing here?" they seemed to say.

Times have changed.

Two months ago, a nine year old girl visited the Vermont State House with her mother. After looking at the portraits, she came to mine. "Finally." she said, "a woman. It's about time."

The question that is being asked today is: will it be time for a woman's portrait to hang in the White House in 2008 - the first female President?

There is cause for optimism. The first woman speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives - Nancy Pelosi - was elected. Soon her portrait will hang in the Capitol, a rarity in a sea of men.

Almost as revolutionary, was the decision to name a woman president of Harvard - Drew Gilpin Faust. Her portrait will certainly stand out amongst the dark portraits of past Harvard presidents.

Vermont has Gaye Symmington, the second woman speaker in the state's history.

Yet, despite these positive indicators, when we contemplate voting for a woman President, there is hesitation. Both men and women, because both have been part of a society where male leadership is the norm and female leadership is the exception, still have gender bias.

It's not old fashioned straight out sexism. It's much more subtle than that. We expect a lot from a woman President, perhaps even the impossible. On one hand, we want her to be tough, tough enough to fight back when attacked; tough enough to stand up to terrorists; tough enough to protect us whatever happens. On the other hand, we want her to be feminine, caring, compassionate, and approachable.

Male candidates have to meet some of those tests, but they have more free range. When they are tough, we admire them. When women are tough, we're not sure we like it.

Take the word ambitious, a term used against Hillary Clinton recently. Ambition is a laudable quality in a man - in a woman: not so sure. Shouldn't success just happen to women, without they're going after it?

Ironically, experience has been one of the hardest criteria for women to meet as candidates for the Presidency. Today, we have a candidate whose qualifications aren't questioned, but some question whether her experience is a minus rather than a plus.

Women running for the Presidency are standing on very narrow ground between being too masculine on one side or too feminine on the other. They have to be both and achieve just the right balance. Otherwise, they fall off the edge.

We've come a long way, yes; but we still have a long way to go before we judge a woman candidate by the same criteria as we would a man.

Madeleine May Kunin is a former governor of Vermont.