The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

26 MAY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL sador to the Holy See from 1997 to 2001, presented a humorous, insightful talk about the wives of the Founding Fathers. “You’d Think Men Did It Alone” amplified many of the themes of gender equality that EW@S works to address. Other speakers have included Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, who posed the question: “Has the Glass Ceiling Cracked?” George Washington University Professor Allida Black shared lessons from one of the great women leaders of the 20th century in “Eleanor Roosevelt, Not Invisible Then or Now,” while Georgetown University Professor Deborah Tannen translated the mysteries of workplace communication in her presentation on “Women, Language and Authority.” During this year’s Women’s History Month observance, dis- tinguished author and evolutionary theorist Riane Eisler set forth the principles of a caring economy to explain her premise that “What’s Good for Women Is Good for the World.” Advocating for Diversity and Women’s Advancement Meetings of EW@S board members with senior State leaders have offered opportunities to influence the department’s diver- sity activities and information. As a result of one such meeting, EW@S was invited to submit recommendations and work with the Office of Human Resources to improve the transparency of diversity statistics. This led to publication of gender-disaggregated Foreign Service promotion statistics in the June 2012 issue of State magazine. As former EW@S President Julie Gianelloni Connor observed, “That was the result of five years of effort.” Beginning in 2008 and again in 2011, EW@S board members had compiled these statistics informally by extrapolating from bureau and post leadership listings, award and promotion lists, and other published sources. That approach presented a variety of challenges, from determining who held the information to addressing the ambiguity of certain names: “Does anyone know if Robin (or Marion or Leigh) is a male or a female?” Impressed with the openness achieved by this collaboration, representatives from another federal agency asked, “How did you accomplish this? Our human resources office treats this infor- mation like an official secret.”The answer is simple: steady and repeated EW@S engagement with department principals and HR professionals to promote greater transparency in the availability of diversity statistics, resulting in changes that benefit not just EW@S but all diversity groups. We also coordinate or co-sponsor many events at State each year. A recent panel, “Looking Beyond State: Opportunities for Civil Service Employees,” was so oversubscribed that it had to be moved from a conference room to the Loy Henderson Audi- torium. More than 130 people attended, and the programwas recorded to make it available to many others. (The video is posted on EW@State’s SharePoint site.) Similarly, a brown-bag mentoring session we held in the Main State cafeteria, “How to Present Yourself for Success,” attracted so many attendees that the original table space had to be doubled. Our quarterly networking breakfasts are also popular, draw- ing 40-60 women to start the day over coffee and pastry while exchanging business cards and professional information. Still a Way to Go We have also learned from other federal agencies’ practices. In June 2012, Stephanie Miller, the director for diversity management Georgetown University Professor Deborah Tannen (fifth from right), Director of the Office of Civil Rights John Robinson (fourth from left), Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy (fourth from right) and EW@S board members (left to right) Cathy Walker, Sandy Robinson, Kelly Kiederling, then-EW@S Vice President Cynthia Saboe, Betty Swope, Joan Corbett, then-EW@S President Julie Gianelloni Connor, Georgia Hubert and Monica O’Keefe. EW@S and OCR sponsored Dr. Tannen’s talk on workplace communication, “Women, Language and Authority,” for the 2010 observance of Women’s History Month at State. Photo credit: Department of State