Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Brennan Weiss. President Donald Trump has appointed ambassadors to 61 countries since assuming office.
But 32 other nations are still without an American ambassador. See which countries below. Central African Republic. Democratic Republic of the Congo. Saudi Arabia. South Africa. South Korea. Loading Something is loading. Even in the United Nations Security Council, there is, thanks to President Clinton, one skirt to balance the fourteen suits. I like to think that is just about even odds.
In record numbers, women in the United States US are entering the rarified field of diplomacy, assuming leadership roles, and breaking with centuries of tradition. However, as recently as the s, women made up only 4. The United States has had women ambassadors since President Harry Truman appointed the first female ambassador in These numbers are lower than in , when there were Seen against the background of United Nations member countries, it means a little more than three percent of UN ambassadors are women.
Historically, diplomacy has been the preserve of men. Women were not admitted to diplomatic and consular services in any appreciable numbers until , when 13 countries, including Nicaragua and Turkey, had women diplomats.
Until the mid th century, the most extensive contribution made by women to diplomacy was as the wives of diplomatic and consular officers. In this capacity, they supported their husbands by running diplomatic households, presiding as hostesses, making their own range of contacts to complement the official work of the Embassy and in many instances, distinguishing themselves by local, voluntary, and community work. In the US State Department, there have been very few women or minority diplomats.
The transition to a merit-based Foreign Service examination in theoretically opened up the Foreign Service, but many women and minority candidates were weeded out during the oral exams. The US Foreign Service did not gain a critical mass of women officers until the s—26 percent in and 33 percent in Until the s, women diplomats had to choose between marriage and career.
Can you believe that the State Department expected women to give up their jobs if they married and did not remove this unfair requirement until ? The American diplomatic service is relatively young—only 80 years old. Nevertheless, it took 25 years to have the first female US ambassador, when Eugenie Anderson went to Denmark in under the Truman administration. It took 65 years for America to have its first Asian American ambassador.
And it took 72 years for women to attain the highest diplomatic position when Madeleine Albright became the first woman Secretary of State. While the numbers of women in diplomacy are growing, significant barriers and challenges remain. There has been very little research on women in diplomacy, but a study by Nancy E. McGlen and Meredith Reid Sarkees found that various factors excluded women and continue to exclude women from the foreign policy arena. Can you guess what the factors are? Women have been marginalized in the arena of foreign policy-making because traditional western and eastern philosophers from Aristotle to Confucius taught that the state, like the household, should be governed by men.
Particularly in affairs of the state, the traits most associated with being a man have been those most valued in the conduct of international politics. Toughness, courage, power, strength, and even the use of force are seen as qualities more appropriate and relevant to the successful management of the state. Added to these barriers posed by gender and cultural stereotyping, the study found past and current examples of both direct and indirect discrimination against women by the National Security Council, Congress, the Department of State and the Department of Defense.
Baker , found the Department to have violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of and to have engaged in gender discrimination in a wide range of activities, including the Foreign Service exam, assignments, evaluations and awards. In a subsequent case, the Voice of America and its parent organization, the United States Information Agency, were likewise found to have been guilty of sex discrimination and ordered also to compensate the victims.
Although more women are entering Foreign Service fields, the study pointed out that the increase is concentrated in lower positions. Women remain largely under-represented in the top administrative and policy decision-making positions.
I participated in the study and remember being asked five basic questions:. The study went on to offer more concrete strategies for women achieving leadership positions in diplomacy. I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Although I had spent my entire professional career at that point in government service, I was not a Foreign Service officer.
US law required nine years citizenship before anyone could join the Foreign Service at the time when I graduated from college. I did not get my American citizenship until after graduation. When you are 20 years old, you think 30 is very old; so, the Foreign Service seemed impractical and out of reach.
And I saw no one who remotely looked like me in the Foreign Service, let alone in positions as ambassadors. The closest I could get to diplomacy was to join the Peace Corps; so, I did. After the Peace Corps, I wanted to pursue an international career. Several of my male volunteer colleagues had gotten good assignments overseas, and I wanted, like them, to return to work in Asia. Peace Corps management told me repeatedly that Asian cultures would not accept a woman, particularly a young woman, in any position of responsibility.
After three years with the Peace Corps in Washington, I realized that the only way for me to go overseas was to take a personal sabbatical with my new husband. Therefore, I took a year off to explore the Middle East and Europe.
I was lucky enough to get a substantive job; to have escaped the usual positions relegated to females whatever their qualifications—as receptionists, secretaries, or legislative correspondents.
I still remember how one senator told me that I could not qualify for a committee position because I did not speak Spanish. When I told him that, indeed, I did speak Spanish, he blustered that I was not from his state—end of interview. Like so many of my compatriots studied by McGlen and Sarkees and the WFPG, I realized very quickly that I would have to work harder, smarter and constantly exceed performance expectations to be able to even gain a foothold in diplomacy. And so, I did.
Twenty years later, a different problem surfaced. Finally, I was offered an ambassadorship. However, my husband was not enthusiastic.
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