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

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.

There are several groups beyond academia who will benefit from the research. Key among these is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), which has of late accorded high priority to questions of gender equality and diversity. The FCO, in its own words, aspires to be 'a world leader in embracing and harnessing difference; creating equality of opportunity; and eliminating discrimination.' Yet women are currently underrepresented in the department, accounting for just 21.3% of the senior management structure (FCO, Annual Diversity Report, 2008-9). In response, the FCO has established a Diversity Equality Scheme to ensure that all employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, age or sexuality have the opportunity to reach their full potential. The findings of Women of the World will assist in advancing these aspirations by revealing how the FCO responded to the challenges of gender diversity in the recent past and by highlighting the lessons to be learned from the experiences of previous generations of female recruits. The research will help decision-makers reach a more sophisticated and historically-informed understanding of the gendered nature of the FCO's institutional culture, which in turn will enable more robust gender diversity policies to be put in place, thus enhancing organizational effectiveness.

I have been in close contact with the Chief Historian at the FCO, Professor Patrick Salmon, and his team, who have offered warm encouragement and support for the project and are keen to facilitate the dissemination of the project's findings to relevant groups within the department. These include staff at the FCO's Diversity Unit, the department's 'Gender Champion', and the FCO Women's Association. Towards the end of the fellowship, these groups will be sent an 'executive summary' which draws out the key lessons of the research for tackling the present-day challenges of gender diversity, and I also hope to set up face-to-face meetings in order to discuss the research further.

The executive summary will be used to engage other potential beneficiaries beyond the FCO. Women's under-representation in the international political arena is an issue of great concern to organizations such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe, both of which have recently launched initiatives to promote gender parity in this sphere. US-based bodies such as the Women's Foreign Policy Group, the Women's Leadership Board at the Kennedy School of Government, and the Council of Women World Leaders are also active on this issue and are likely to find the historical experience of British women of great interest.

Finally, the general reader of history books will benefit from the research. My intention is to write the final publication in an accessible and entertaining style without compromising on the high standards of scholarship expected of a professional historian. The subject matter of the research, and especially its biographical component, is likely to appeal to a broad, non-specialist audience which the author will endeavour to reach through promotional activity once the book is published. This might include, for example, media appearances on such radio programmes as Woman's Hour, Start the Week and Nightwaves; talks at literary festivals and to interested groups (eg. women's organisations, student societies, alumni associations); and feature articles in magazines, both historical (History Today, BBC History) and general-interest (Prospect), as well as the review sections of the major broadsheet newspapers. Depending on the timeframe for publication, this activity is likely to take place from between twelve and eighteen months after the end of the fellowship award.