The Foreign Service Journal, May 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2013 45 employee to accept the overseas assignment. But they often extend such assistance to creating employment opportuni- ties or outright remuneration for the spouse or partner to make up for the loss of income inherent in the employee’s accepting an overseas assignment. Although this approach may be hard to envision in our current budgetary environ- ment, it’s a tool we may need to add to our arsenal if we want to facilitate women’s advancement at State. To find out more about how all of these factors affect female FSOs, we should emulate the best practice of other employers by soliciting employee opinions about these matters. In 2010, women at State were polled by a group called Women in International Security (now based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) for a study on “Women in Peace and Security Careers” that sought to improve the recruitment, retention and advancement of women at State, the intelligence agencies and the Depart- ment of Defense. Women at State (both Civil and Foreign Service) reported being forced to make difficult tradeoffs between their profes- sional and personal lives, including turning down career- enhancing opportunities for family reasons. Others felt that they had been passed up for assignments based on their gender and/or family status, while women without children reported that they more than likely would not have achieved their career success had they not been childless. While some might argue that these are common chal- lenges for working women, the authors of the study reported to me that the morale of women at State seemed to them to be lower than that of their counterparts elsewhere in the fed- eral work force. The most alarming of the WIIS findings was that women were leaving State just when they had the most to offer us, often for reasons that could be addressed through the types of policies outlined here. Given our experience gap at the mid-level and the sub- stantial taxpayer investment in hiring and training female FSOs, we need to pay greater attention to how they are faring and bring our policies into greater alignment with today’s best practices. With women now outperforming men in earning post-secondary degrees, we should expect ever- greater numbers of talented women to join our ranks. The importance of State’s mission to help build a more democratic, secure and prosperous world demands that we ensure talented Foreign Service women live up to their full potential—and have the opportunity to reach for, and grab, the brass ring. n Association for Diplomatic Study and Training (ADST) Got an interesting story to tell? Want to read one? The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training is a non-gov- ernmental, nonprofit organi- zation located at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. Founded in 1986, ADST advances understand- ing of American diplomacy and supports training of foreign affairs personnel. We sponsor a publishing program and our collection of more than 1800 oral history interviews includes such fascinating interviewees as Prudence Bushnell, Terence Todman, and Kathleen Turner. Excerpts from the collection highlight the monumental, the horrifying, the thought-provoking, and the absurd. They reflect the reality of diplomacy, warts and all, mak- ing them a great resource for foreign affairs profession- als, scholars, journalists, and anyone else who likes a great read. Check us out at www.adst.org.