The Foreign Service Journal, October 2005

have had two or more female U.S. chiefs of mission (ambassador or chargé d’affaires), while 11 countries have had four or more female chiefs of mission. But progress was slow. In 1933, Ruth Bryan Owen was appointed as the first female chief of mission. She was appointed at the minister level to head the U.S. embassy for Denmark and Iceland (located in Copen- hagen). The first woman appointed chief of mission at the ambassador level, Helen Eugenie Moore Ander- son, was named ambassador to Denmark in 1949. The first female career diplomat to be appointed as a chief of mission (to Switzerland in 1953), Frances Willis, was also the third woman to be admitted to the Foreign Service. During her long career, Willis was named ambassador to two other countries and was the first woman to attain the rank of career ambassador. In the first 42 years (1933-1976) following the Owens appointment as chief of mission, women were appointed to 31 senior positions (ambassadors or assistant secretaries of State) in the U.S. diplomatic corps (see Chart 4, p. 58). Career Foreign Service officers Carol Laise and Frances Willis were each appointed to three senior-level posts during this period, while political appointees Helen Anderson and Shirley Temple Black were each appointed to two ambassadorships. Black later was named to a third senior position, chief of protocol. The number of female appoint- ments as chief of mission or to other senior positions stayed well within single digits from the Roosevelt through Nixon administrations. The Ford administration broke that barri- er, appointing seven female chiefs of mission and three women to senior positions. With the Carter adminis- tration, rapid progress began: 18 women were made chiefs of mission and 10 were appointed to other senior positions. Reagan and George H.W. Bush continued the trend, with 33 and 37 female appointments, respectively. The Clinton administra- tion made a larger leap, appointing 116 women to the senior-most posts. In its first term, the George W. Bush administration named 69 females to the highest diplomatic posts. Moreover, women played key roles in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Christina Rocca was the assis- tant secretary for South Asian affairs. Wendy Chamberlin was ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002, and was followed by Nancy Powell (2002- 2004). During this period several women were named ambassadors to Arab countries. Maureen Quinn was ambassador to Qatar from 2001 to 2004. During the same period, Marcelle Wahba was ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, and was succeeded by Michelle Sison, who had been the deputy chief of mission in Pakistan from 2000 to 2002. In late 2003 Margaret Scobey was appointed ambassador to Syria. Measuring Progress By 2003, 34 percent of Foreign Service officers and 31 percent of Foreign Service specialists were women. Women made up only 25 percent of the senior Foreign Service, however. Historically, women are more like- ly to have been ambassadors to small countries (see Chart 7, p. 60), and progress up the ranks of other senior positions has been halting (see Charts 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10, pp. 59 and 61). Women are especially likely to be appointed as ambassadors to small countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. By the same token, although six women have served as assistant secretaries of geographic bureaus and 45 women have been appointed assistant secretaries of functional bureaus, no woman has served as deputy secretary of State, under secretary for political affairs, or as assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Near Eastern affairs or Western Hemisphere affairs — half of the geographic bureaus. According to a column by former AFSA State Vice President Louise Crane, “How Are FS Women at State Faring?” ( AFSA News , Jan. 2005), women have been promoted into and within the Senior Foreign Service at the same rate as men for the past three years. “Generally, if women make up 25 percent of the class,” Crane found, “they receive 25 percent of the promotions.” But Crane also found that of the 99 career-officer ambassadors in mid-2004, only 22, or 22 percent, were FS women from the State Department (one other career woman was from the Foreign Agri- cultural Service). Crane noted that most officers appointed as chiefs of mission are in the OC and MC ranks, and added that as of Aug. 31, 2004, there were 853 officers at the OC and MC levels. Of those, 222, or 26 percent, were women. Thus, Crane concluded, career FS women from the State Department were underrepresented by 4 percent in the ranks of chiefs of mission. 54 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5 The rapid gains of the past decade contrast sharply with the incremental advances of the previous 70 years.