Ambassadors in high heels

I’m giving a press conference at a seminar for young eastern European mayors at the Ukrainian provincial town of Vinnitsa when a journalist leans forward.  Why, he asks, are there are so few women amongst the mayors invited to the event?

After the organisers have explained that they had to invite young mayors from those available and that there weren’t many women candidates, I chip in to say that the Foreign Office takes diversity seriously.  Equality and diversity are as vital to running a successful foreign policy as they are to running a successful city or country.  Many of the embassies in this geostrategically important region have women ambassadors – including Baku, Minsk, Moscow and Tbilisi.  Worldwide, the UK has a total of 33 women ambassadors, around 13% of the total.  Although this is not enough, it is an improvement on 2003, when there were 18 women ambassadors, or 1997 when there were nine.  Indeed, up until 1972, any woman British diplomat who got married was obliged to resign.

The importance of women ambassadors – and indeed, female diplomats at all levels – is much discussed in the Foreign Office.  Not only can they be high-impact on core issues of diplomacy; they can also act as role models both in the UK and further afield.  Carolyn Browne, ambassador in Baku, tells me how ten years ago, she was staying as a private guest of a colleague who was one of the first female ambassadors in the former Soviet Union.  As a woman diplomat, she had always wondered whether she might one day become an ambassador herself – if she didn’t like cooking and didn’t have a spouse, who would train the cook?  Would the host government take her seriously?  So she was inspired in the course of a week’s stay to see how, calmly and efficiently, her friend proceeded by her actions to demonstrate that being a woman was no obstacle to being an ambassador in a demanding country in the former Soviet Union.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t still challenges.  Carolyn tells me how, after being head of mission for 18 months, she was invited to talk to the newly formed female diplomats group within the Diplomatic Academy of Azerbaijan, where new entrants to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were trained.  One of the young female diplomats hesitantly said she had a question but felt embarrassed to ask it.  After some encouragement, she asked how the ambassador coped with the “high heel thing”.  Did she wear fashionably high heels in line with her position as an ambassador on public show?  In that case, how did she cope with the demands of a busy office or being on her feet in a crisis for hours at a time?  Or do she wear shorter, more practical shoes and accept that she might not be as polished or presentable as contemporary society might expect?  Carolyn replied that the key thing was to dress like a person in authority.  Whether that meant high heels or not would depend on your style.  But for her personally, there were times when high heels were not only inherently wonderful, but could also help project an image of power which helped ensure that she, as ambassador, could secure the best results for the UK and for British business interests in her contacts with the authorities in Baku.

Back at the press conference in Vinnitsa, Margaret Jack, Director at the British Council in Kyiv, tells the assembled mayors that the Council recently won a prize as one of the best equal opportunity employers in Ukraine.  The point is, she says, that by encouraging diversity you ensure you have the biggest pool of the most talented people for every job.  That, it seems to me, must apply equally to mayors, diplomats or anyone else – regardless what you wear.

NB: for background on the role of women in the Foreign Office, check out: Women in Diplomacy: The FCO, 1782-1999, produced in 1999.  The section on the Schuster Report of 1933 on possible admission of women to the Diplomatic and Consular Service (page 7) includes some familiar arguments.  It also shows how some attitudes, at least, have changed.  So do some of the entries in the rather jaw-dropping “Selection of the views of HM Representatives abroad in 1933 on whether women should be appointed to the Diplomatic and Consular Services” at pages 29-34.  Finally, the exchange between Sir Claud Schuster and JW Nicholls of the FCO at pages 33-34, referring to one ambassador as seeming “… to talk from the depths of the Middle Ages”, is elegant.