You're not paying attention then. Office politics applies to everyone. It's the one meritocratic thing about business. The person who's better at manipulating people goes to the top, regardless of race, gender, etc.
That being said, if I were looking for a career in management I'd rather be female. In most of the workplaces I've been they've got a decided advantage at promotion after controlling for motivation and political savvy; and around a third of the girls in my university year moved in to senior management positions.
This is true for one simple reason: Promotions are not weighed by an impartial algorithm, chosen by sorting, and doled out on a set schedule. They are submitted for consideration and approved by the powerful, when they feel like it, for whatever reasons they feel like.
The further up the hierarchy you go, the less exceptional people are. It's called the Peter Principle. Even if you used to be exceptional at your job, a promotion gives you a different job. And technical skill has almost nothing to do with ability to get promoted.
The only reason women might be promoted more is they're working twice as hard as the men. I'm sure if you asked them, they would rather have been men, when it comes to getting promotions. The bar would be a lot lower.
I don't see how you arrive at that description. Usefulness is a form of merit -- a very useful one.
> women might be promoted more [if] they're working twice s as hard
Doesn't this contradict your first assertion?
This is never consistently true, certainly not in large organizations where quality of personnel can be very variable.
Isnt there some kind of glass ceiling for women and they get paid less compared to men?
Women get paid the same as men for the exact same job with the same performance. The studies that show the opposite are taking the pay for all women and dividing it by pay by all men (summarizing).