Twentieth Century British History Advance Access originally published online on July 21, 2009
Twentieth Century British History 2009 20(3):285-321; doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwp029
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Petticoat Diplomacy: The Admission of Women to the British Foreign Service, c.1919–1946
St John's College, Cambridge
*hm234{at}cam.ac.uk. The author would like to thank David Reynolds, Zara Steiner, Mari Takayanagi, Pat Thane and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article.
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Abstract |
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This article tells the story of the campaign to admit women to Britain's Foreign Service on equal terms with men. Although the principle of equal opportunity was established in the Home Civil Service as a result of legislation passed in 1919, posts in the Diplomatic and Consular Services remained reserved to men until 1946. As part of their broader attempts to feminize public life following female enfranchisement, women's societies argued forcefully for equality, marshalling evidence of British women's impressive past performance as overseas missionaries, medics and explorers, and their quasi-diplomatic experience at the League of Nations. The Foreign Office, however, remained resolutely opposed to female diplomats on the grounds that they would not be taken seriously by foreign governments and would create insurmountable administrative difficulties, particularly in relation to their marital status. The Second World War transformed the debate by extending the opportunities available to women to serve the state overseas and by renewing pressure on the Foreign Office to modernize its working practices. As a result, women became eligible for the Foreign Service, although a marriage bar was enforced together with a ten per cent cap on female recruitment. This hitherto neglected aspect of women's employment in Britain offers fresh insights into feminist activism and the gendered practices of the British state, together with a new perspective on the modernization of the Foreign Office in the first half of the twentieth century.