Where Are the Female Ambassadors? Gender and Status Hierarchies in Ambassador Postings

Abstract

Focusing on ambassador appointments, this chapter addresses some fundamental questions about where men and women are positioned in diplomacy. After mapping out the basic numbers and where female and male ambassadors are stationed geographically, we examine whether women tend to cluster in ambassadorships of lesser status while remaining underrepresented in the ambassador positions of power and clout. How many female ambassadors are there in the world? Where are male and female ambassadors posted, especially with respect to positions of power and prestige? In other words, are there gender patterns in ambassador appointments? In answering these basic questions, we seek to broaden the knowledge base about men, women and diplomacy, helping to fill the gaps in the scholarship on gender and diplomacy identified in the introductory chapter.

This chapter is based in large part on the open access article Towns, Ann E. and Birgitta Niklasson (2017) “Gender, International Status and Ambassador Appointments” Foreign Policy Analysis 13(3):521–540 (first published online April 15, 2016).