The Foreign Service Journal, March 2016

48 MARCH 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the required social life was a full-time job. … So I didn’t reenter the workforce because I looked down on the role of a Foreign Service wife. … It was the early 1970s, and America was changing. There was a sexual revolution, a feminist revolution and a political revolution—thanks to Vietnam. Even the State Department changed. I found it a great advantage to be a woman at that time. Officials were striving to advance women and to demonstrate that they were mov- ing with the times. I became the first female staff assistant on the seventh floor, where the highest-level State officials work. I was the first spouse permitted to work in her husband’s embassy (in Kinshasa), and the first spokeswoman in the State Depart- ment. It was a rewarding path—pro- viding both time for my children when they were young and a fulfilling career. I hope young officers starting careers today will remem- ber that most of the changes for women at the State Depart- ment would not have come about without lawsuits and a fair amount of pushing. And both men and women in the Foreign Service today should know that the tension between career and parenthood still exists, especially for women. Would I recommend the Foreign Service career to young women today? You bet I would. In spite of the danger, sharp shards left in the breached glass ceiling and complexities of family life, I still see the Foreign Service as the most interest- Until the 1970s, the evaluations for male FSOs included an assessment of their wives’ involvement in representational activities and general comportment. On Jan. 22, 1972, in response to growing protest, the Department of State sent an airgram clarifying that participation by a Foreign Service spouse in the work of a post is a voluntary act and “not a legal obligation which can be imposed by any Foreign Service official or his wife.” the likely event of a next assignment to Washington, D.C., I would want to apply for a return to the Foreign Service. … At this point, I felt I could do it—our daughter was going to enter high school and our son was going into junior high, and we would probably be in Washington for a while. So the timing for reentry was quite propitious, and soon after our return to Washington, I “came back in.” I should say one other thing about my decision. I have never denigrated the role of women in the Foreign Service; I was “wife of” for 16 years and know how difficult it is to manage a family under very trying circumstances and many moves. The management of children and a household and