Women of the World: Gender, British Diplomacy and International Politics, c.1870 to the present

世界妇女：性别、英国外交和国际政治，约 1870 年至今

• 批准号: AH/I026723/1
• 负责人: Helen McCarthy
• 金额: $ 5.19万
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FI026723%2F1
• 关键词: Women; World; Gender; British; Diplomacy

Before 1946, no British woman could officially represent her nation abroad. What power she wielded in the diplomatic arena rested on family connections, political patronage, specialist knowledge or the sheer force of personality. It was only after decades of campaigning and the heroic labours performed by women during the Second World War that diplomatic careers were finally opened to both sexes. Even so, the Foreign Service remained for many decades an unmistakeably male preserve, where the rookie woman diplomat found herself to be an object of curiosity, bemusement and, occasionally, outright hostility. By exploring the experiences of women in diplomatic life, Women of the World seeks to illuminate the broader gender dynamics of Britain's international relations in the modern period. It begins by tracing the informal and indirect influence which women could exercise as political spouses, experts and lobbyists, narrating the lives of such individuals as the writer and explorer Gertrude Bell, the journalist Flora Shaw, the humanitarian campaigner Josephine Butler and the missionary Mary Slesser. The project moves on to consider the impact of the First World War, which enabled a handful of women, including Bell in Iraq and the Scandinavian expert Bertha Philpotts in Sweden, to serve the British state overseas. The Foreign Office, however, remained staunchly opposed to the formal admission of women to the diplomatic service and successfully defended its male monopoly from the claims of feminists in the 1930s. This was despite evidence of women's success as delegates to the League of Nations and other international conferences, as well as their admission to the highest ranks of the home Civil Service. Next, the project explores the impact of the Second World War by surveying the work of women in temporary or quasi-diplomatic posts, such as Mary McGeachy and Winifred Cullis in the USA, Nancy Lambton and Freya Stark in the Middle East, and Elizabeth Wiskemann in Switzerland. The research shows how the examples of these and other women were crucial in convincing the Foreign Office to open the diplomatic service to both sexes in 1946, although women were subject to a marriage bar, an annual recruitment cap of 10 per cent and lower pay than their male colleagues. The final section of the project examines how these inequalities affected the experiences and career mobility of female diplomats after 1946. It delves into the social and educational backgrounds of the first and subsequent generations of recruits, asking why these women sought careers in diplomacy and how they dealt with the gendered expectations of marriage and motherhood, both whilst the marriage bar was in force, and after 1972, the year in which it was abolished. The research investigates how male diplomats responded to the presence of female colleagues and how, in more recent years, the Foreign Office sought to establish effective equal opportunities and diversity policies. The project also considers the ways in which women continued to wield influence informally as diplomatic spouses, and asks whether other career paths, in such sectors as international development and human rights, have in recent decades proved more inviting to women seeking to make a difference on the international stage. Drawing on letters, memoirs, personal interviews and government records, the research interweaves individual biographies with broader analyses of the gendered nature of diplomatic life and the institutional cultures of the Foreign Office and the wider civil service. In so doing, it captures lives caught up in the larger endeavours of the British imperial and post-imperial state, thus enriching our wider understanding of Britain's global history in modern times.

在1946年之前，没有一位英国女性可以在国外正式代表她的国家。她在外交竞技场上的权力取决于家庭关系、政治庇护、专业知识或纯粹的人格力量。只是在经过几十年的竞选活动和妇女在第二次世界大战期间的英勇劳动之后，外交职业才最终向两性开放。即便如此，几十年来，外交部门仍然是一个明确的男性保护区，这位新来的女外交官发现自己是一个好奇、困惑的对象，有时甚至是完全的敌意。通过探索妇女在外交生活中的经历，《世界妇女》试图阐明现代时期英国国际关系中更广泛的性别动态。它首先追溯了妇女作为政治配偶、专家和说客所能发挥的非正式和间接影响，叙述了作家和探险家格特鲁德·贝尔、记者植物群·肖、人道主义活动家约瑟芬·巴特勒和传教士玛丽·斯莱瑟等个人的生活。该项目继续考虑第一次世界大战的影响，这使得包括伊拉克的贝尔和瑞典的斯堪的纳维亚专家伯莎·菲尔波茨在内的少数女性能够在海外为英国政府服务。然而，外交部仍然坚决反对正式接纳女性进入外交部门，并在20世纪30年代成功地捍卫了男性的垄断地位。尽管有证据表明，妇女作为代表成功地参加了国际联盟和其他国际会议，并被接纳为国内公务员制度的最高级别人员。接下来，该项目通过调查妇女在临时或准外交职位上的工作，如美国的玛丽和温妮弗雷德·库利斯、中东的南希兰顿和弗雷娅·斯塔克以及瑞士的伊丽莎白·维斯克曼，探讨第二次世界大战的影响。研究表明，这些妇女和其他妇女的例子在说服外交部在1946年向男女开放外交服务方面发挥了至关重要的作用，尽管妇女受到婚姻限制，每年招聘上限为10%，工资低于男同事。该项目的最后一部分探讨了这些不平等如何影响1946年后女外交官的经历和职业流动性。它深入研究了第一代和随后几代新兵的社会和教育背景，询问为什么这些妇女寻求外交职业，以及她们如何处理婚姻和母亲的性别期望，无论是在婚姻酒吧生效的时候，还是在1972年之后，它被废除了。这项研究调查了男外交官如何应对女同事的存在，以及外交部近年来如何寻求制定有效的平等机会和多样性政策。该项目还审议了妇女作为外交人员配偶继续非正式地发挥影响力的方式，并询问在国际发展和人权等部门的其他职业道路是否在最近几十年对寻求在国际舞台上发挥作用的妇女更有吸引力。 该研究利用信件、回忆录、个人访谈和政府记录，将个人传记与对外交生活的性别性质以及外交部和更广泛的公务员制度文化的更广泛分析交织在一起。通过这样做，它捕捉了英国帝国和后帝国国家更大努力中的生活，从而丰富了我们对英国近代全球历史的更广泛理解。

项目成果

Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat

世界妇女：女外交官的崛起

• 发表时间: 2014
• 作者: McCarthy Helen

Women, Diplomacy and International Relations since 1500

1500 年以来的妇女、外交和国际关系

• 作者: McCarthy, H

Women, Marriage and Work in the British Diplomatic Service

英国外交部门的妇女、婚姻和工作

• DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2014.906844
• 发表时间: 2014
• 期刊: Women's History Review
• 作者: McCarthy H

The Diplomatic History of Global Women's Rights: The British Foreign Office and International Women's Year, 1975

全球妇女权利的外交史：英国外交部和国际妇女年，1975

• DOI: 10.1177/0022009415577002
• 发表时间: 2015
• 期刊: Journal of Contemporary History
• 影响因子: 0.7
• 作者: McCarthy H