By guest blogger and NWPC board member, Marguerite Cooper
Right out of college in 1956, I went into the U.S. Foreign Service, after passing rigorous written and oral exams. At the time, only 4.6% of US career diplomats were women.
There was systematic and systemic discrimination against women at the time, although it took me almost 10 years to realize this. My first day on the job I learned that women, as a condition of employment, could not be married. They did not volunteer this information, but I learned it when all newcomers were asked what their assignment preferences were. I said “Moscow, Prague or Warsaw” as my undergraduate specialty had been Eastern Europe and Communism within USC’s School of International Relations.
Nope. We don’t send single officers behind the Iron Curtain, I was told, and should I marry, I would have to resign from the Service. It turns out that the Personnel Office required its employees to be available for worldwide service and women’s residences were presumed to be where ever their husbands were. Less concrete but just as chilling was Personnel’s assumption that should the Soviets attempt blackmail by arranging for the seduction of American diplomats, women would be more likely than men to betray their country over their Communist lovers! So, I had to choose another geographical specialty and abandon my university background. I chose India and South Asia.
Over the years I was told that I would not be assigned to Middle Eastern countries, as they looked down on women, nor trained in Arabic or Japanese language, for the same reason. I could be a consular officer, issuing visas and passports, but not a political one, analyzing events and trends and recommending policy.
