"Commanding Beauty" and "Gentle Charm": American Women and Gender in the Early Twentieth-Century Foreign Service

Wood, Molly M.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2007.00629.x

Cited by 15 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Like the masculinity of male diplomats discussed previously, foreign services were concerned with the dress and comportment of wives. In particular, they valued wives who were beautiful, charming and blessed with excellent social skills (Wood, 2007: 510). Wives were aware that they and their husbands were being evaluated on their performance and spent commensurate time and money ensuring they were properly attired.…”

Section: Diplomacy and Habitusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendering the practice turn in diplomacy

Standfield

2020

European Journal of International Relations

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International Relations has developed an exciting new research agenda on diplomatic practice, drawing largely on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu. However, it largely ignores Bourdieu’s theory of patriarchy, as well as extensive feminist Bourdieusian analysis. These are analytical tools that can be used to understand how diplomacy reproduces itself as a masculinized field. They are ‘practice theory’ as well and should be incorporated into our research on diplomatic practice. My aims here are to recover feminist practice theory for a diplomatic studies audience and to indicate how we can develop an interdisciplinary research agenda on gender and diplomacy. The first part of the article provides an overview of practice theory in diplomatic studies and discusses Bourdieu’s overlooked contributions regarding gender. I then use Bourdieu’s ‘thinking tools’ of field, habitus and practice to examine diplomacy and gender using examples drawn from the literature, as well as from some primary sources. Throughout, I show how feminist sociologists have developed his ideas to create sophisticated approaches to studying the persistence of patriarchy. This does not capture all the ways in which diplomacy is gendered, but these tools reveal the limitations in our current understanding of diplomatic practices. I conclude with suggestions for future interdisciplinary research that takes gender seriously.

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Section: Diplomacy and Habitusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendering the practice turn in diplomacy

Standfield

2020

European Journal of International Relations

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“…The most developed literature on gender and diplomacy is undoubtedly that within diplomatic history, a thriving subfield of history (e.g., Dean 2001Dean , 2012Daybell 2011;Costigliola 2012;Jeffreys-Jones 1995;Hickman 1999;Wood 2005Wood , 2007McCarthy 2009McCarthy , 2014Shibusawa 2012;Wilson 2012;Farias 2015;Kiddle 2015;Sluga and James 2016). Diplomatic history studies have primarily examined the active roles women have taken for centuries in European diplomacy.…”

Section: Diplomatic Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

The gender turn in diplomacy: a new research agenda

Aggestam

Towns

2018

International Feminist Journal of Politics

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This article argues that the (re-)constitution of diplomacy is intimately linked to gender and the practices of exclusion and inclusion of women and men over time. While the big debates in both academia and among practitioners concern the change and continuity of diplomacy in the last hundred years, gender has received scant, if any, attention. The overarching aim of this article is therefore to advance a new research agenda, which can spur future gender studies and contribute to rethinking diplomacy. It presents an original narrative about three distinct bodies of diplomatic scholarly work that focus on (1) diplomatic history; (2) descriptive representation; and (3) gendered institutions. We conclude that first there is a need to move out of Europe and North America to provide greater focus on Africa, Asia and Latin America. Second, there is a need to move beyond the descriptive single case studies towards more systematic comparisons, which can trace change in institutional gender dynamics over time. Ethnographic work can provide novel insights to gendered micro-processes and the daily mundane institutional practices. Third, as part of the gender turn in the field of diplomacy international feminist theory can generate significant theoretical contributions to the transformation of diplomacy.

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Where the Boys Are: Militarization, Sexuality and Red Cross Donut Dollies in the Vietnam War

Vuic¹

2012

Gender and Conflict Since 1914

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"Commanding Beauty" and "Gentle Charm": American Women and Gender in the Early Twentieth-Century Foreign Service

Cited by 15 publications

References 8 publications

Gendering the practice turn in diplomacy

Gendering the practice turn in diplomacy

The gender turn in diplomacy: a new research agenda

Where the Boys Are: Militarization, Sexuality and Red Cross Donut Dollies in the Vietnam War

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