The Foreign Service Journal, October 2005

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 ntil 1997, the citadel of U.S. diplo- matic white male service — the position of Secretary of State — had not been breached by a woman or by a member of an ethnic minority. President Clinton shattered the Secretary of State gender barrier with his appointment of Madeleine Albright in January of that year. President George W. Bush broke the ethnic/racial glass ceiling for the position by naming Colin Powell in January 2001. His subsequent appointment of Condoleezza Rice, an African-American woman, as Secretary of State in January 2005 continues the movement of women into the highest levels of government. Besides appointing female Secretaries of State, Presidents Clinton and Bush both dramatically increased the number of women appointed as chiefs of mission and to other senior positions in the State Department. In his eight years as president, Clinton appointed 116 women to senior levels, 87 as chief of mission and 29 to other senior posts. In his first term as president, Bush appointed 69 women, 50 as chief of mission and 19 to other top posts. The rapid gains of the past decade contrast sharply with the incremental advances of the previous 70 years, and position women for new breakthroughs in the months and years immediately ahead. A Slow Start After women were permitted to join the U.S. diplomat- ic corps in 1922, they have slowly made their way to the highest positions in the State Department (see Charts 1 and 2, pp. 56 and 57). From the appointment of Ruth Bryan Owen as the first female chief of mission in 1933, through the end of 2004, 217 women were appointed to 313 slots as chief of mission (ambassador, minister or chargé d’affaires), assistant secretary of State and other senior-level positions. Of those 217, 111 were career Foreign Service officers and 106 were non-career, political appointees. From 1933 to the end of 2004, a total of 2,450 persons filled chief-of-mission positions, as either ministers, ambas- sadors or chargés d’affaires. Of these, approximately 8 per- cent were women (see Chart 3, p. 58). Women have been appointed or nominated to 207 chief of mission positions at ambassador/minister rank and to 23 chief-of-mission posi- tions at the chargé d’affaires level. American women have served as ambassadors in 115 countries. Sixty-six countries FOR THE RECORD B REAKING T HROUGH D IPLOMACY ’ S G LASS C EILING S ECRETARY OF S TATE R ICE CAN GIVE WELL - QUALIFIED F OREIGN S ERVICE WOMEN MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO SERVE IN KEY COUNTRIES AND IN SENIOR POSITIONS NOT PREVIOUSLY OFFERED THEM . B Y A NN W RIGHT Ann Wright was an FSO from 1987 until 2003, when she resigned from the Service while serving as deputy chief of mission in Ulaanbaatar. She was also DCM in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and (for a short time) Afghanistan, and had assignments in Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, Nicaragua and Washington, D.C. In addition, she attended the Naval War College and was a Pearson Fellow in the office of the governor of Hawaii. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her work as chargé d’affaires for leading the evacuation of a large part of the international community from Sierra Leone in 1997. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Wright was in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and participated in civil recon- struction after military operations in Grenada and Somalia. She attained the rank of colonel during 26 years of military service. U