Not because she is a woman

Bravo!"More than a century of male-dominated baton wielding will finally be brought to an end when Marin Alsop becomes the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms. ... Ms Alsop, 56, was not chosen because she was a woman. Her musical strengths simply made her the best person to conduct this year’s festivities, which traditionally provide a flag-waving finale to the two-month series, the BBC said." - The Independent.

That is as it should be, the best person for the job. There can be nothing more demeaning to womanhood than the notion that they would not have been considered had they not been female.