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ID: 153424

Gender, international status, and ambassador appointments / Towns, Ann ; Niklasson, Birgitta

Towns, Ann	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

Focusing on ambassador appointments, the aim of this pioneering article is to address some fundamental questions about where men and women are positioned in diplomacy. Most of the gender-related diplomacy studies are limited to individual Ministry of Foreign Affairs and say little about diplomacy as an aggregate set of practices. We draw on theories of gender and positional status to ask whether there are gender patterns in ambassador appointments—with men occupying positions of higher military and economic status than women—much like the ones found in other institutions. Our analyses are based on a unique data set containing almost 7,000 ambassador appointments, made by the fifty highest ranked countries in terms of GDP in 2014. The results show that female ambassadors are less likely to occupy high-status ambassadorships than men. In short, gender patterns, linked to power and status, are present also in ambassador appointments. Diplomacy studies need to do much more to address the presence and impact of gender in international affairs.

Key Words

Gender ; International Status ; Ambassador Appointments

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ID: 092884

Status of women as a standard of civilization / Towns, Ann

Towns, Ann	Journal Article
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2009.

Summary/Abstract

This article focuses on the status of women as a standard of civilization by examining its emergence in the 19th-century European 'society of civilized states.' More specifically, the article centers on expectations about the proper political role of women and how these operated as a standard to distinguish 'civilized' states from other societies. The article shows that the political exclusion of women - not their inclusion - became expected behavior for 'advanced' societies at this time. To statesmen and social scientists alike, evidence from 'savage' society and an uncivilized European past demonstrated that women could not contribute to human advancement if given a political role. To arrive at this claim, the article examines the understandings that had come into place to make the political exclusion of women possible and reasonable for European and European settler states.

Key Words

Civilization ; Women ; Gender ; International Society ; Norms ; International Hierarchy ;
Civilized Society

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