What will be the lasting legacy of this international financial crisis? Is it the end of capitalism, as a socialist poster on a lamp post in Dublin declared last week? Or will we stop buying property and refuse to put our money in the bank? Will the banking profession become a noble one, populated by philanthropic people motivated not by money but by the greater good?

None of the above, according to some analysts who say the end result should be that big business should be handed over to women.

High testosterone levels have been linked to increased risk-taking and it was the manic risk-taking that led to banks and financial institutions being brought to their knees when the punter at the end of the line just couldn't stump up the readies. The psychologists who have been promoting this theory cite the example of Lloyds TSB, which has a policy of pushing women to the top and which has emerged as one of the strongest contenders in the fight for survival in the corporate bloodbath.

There are, of course, some women who have made it to the top, or almost to the top, in large companies but they stand accused of sacrificing their femininity in order to get there.

Fifty-two-year-old Zoe Cruz was supposed to be the woman who would become the first CEO of a Wall Street bank before she was sacked from Morgan Stanley late last year. She was hailed as having the potential to really smash the Wall Street glass ceiling but she was fired by a boss who, it seems, was feeling the heat of the credit crunch and needed to pass it on to an underling before it gave him third-degree burns.

Zoe Cruz was a typical alpha female who played by the men's rules to beat them at their own game. She did not support plans for a flexitime working arrangement for female staff trying to juggle children and careers. When the bank was faced with a claim for discrimination on gender grounds, she advised paying off the complainant to make the problem disappear.

The old boys' network dictates that women like Zoe Cruz are the ones who get ahead, but reason and science now suggest we would all be better off if women who are allowed to be women were taken seriously as business leaders. A recent Harvard University study found 39 research papers on the subject had decided women make more effective leaders than men.

The heady concoction of testosterone and individualism which drives ambitious males might be tempered by a more feminine approach to business, where compassion and emotion combined with reasoned caution are allowed to become part of a new management style.

For evidence of this in practice we only have to look at the Irish version of the television show, The Apprentice. While the male team run around like headless chickens trying to see how quickly they can isolate the weaker players and prove that they are the best individuals, the women work together quietly and efficiently and have managed to win their tasks for two weeks running.

The efficiency of the females has become so apparent, next week the teams will be mixed up to make sure at least some of the boys have a chance to win.

So when the shakedown finally happens in the high-octane world of high finance, will the powers-that-be take stock and realise that it's time for a culture change?

In the main, businesses have consistently ignored the results of the research which provides concrete evidence that a woman in charge will lead to a properly managed organisation with sustainable profits, but maybe now having been hit hard in the pocket, change might become a necessary strategy.