bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1989), p. 32
CANADA: In September 1988, Pat Carney as President of the Treasury Board created the Task Force on Barriers to Women in the Public Service. The Task Force Report is due in November, 1989. The following excerpts are from an article by Ms. Carney published in Dialogue, Vol.
• When I became a minister, I was struck by the lack of women bureaucrats at my briefings.
• The public service is the largest work force in Canada. Therefore, any lessons we learn from the Task Force on Barriers to Women in the Public Service will certainly interest the private sector. The merit principle is very important in the public service; we want to remove barriers to women within the merit context.
• In terms of institutional barriers, I found that External Affairs had never named a married women with children to head a mission abroad. Female appointees were always single, widowed or divorced. Yet many women had been appointed as trade commissioners in Hong Kong. When I asked why, I was told that lack of family housing was a factor. The implication, right or wrong, was that women put up with less!
• As for attitudes, I have often met women who do not perceive themselves as senior management material, even when they clearly are. It is the way they view themselves and their career potential. That is, of course, truer for my generation, but I am amazed at how many younger women are willing to do the work, but not assume the title.
• Based on personal experience, I wondered whether women were actually reaching the entry levels for senior management positions. Networking and mentors are very important. Both should be encouraged and rewarded.
• The task force is addressing three basic questions:
– Where are there so few women in certain occupational groups, even when they are available in the work force?
– Why do women tend to be concentrated in the “lowest level” groups?
– What happened to the women who were trailblazers, who had no role models, and what were their coping strategies?
USA: The following excerpts from the Washington Post April 20, 1989, concern a January, 1989 court decision on a class action suit on discrimination against women in the American Foreign Service:
• The State Department has acknowledged that it discriminated against its female Foreign Service officers in hiring, assignments and honors between 1976 and 1985.
• The department has cancelled the Foreign Service Exam for 1989 following a related court decision, which found that the test is discriminatory because men pass its mandatory general background section at a rate roughly twice that of women. In notices.. the department acknowleage
– Using a discriminator examinatio that disproportionately causes women to be assigned to the relatively low- Status consular “cone” — or job track
– instead of the high-status political “cone”. State Department employees in the consular and political “cones” may have the same rank and earn the same salaries, but a consular official may be bogged down in handling visas while a political official is making policy.
– Assigning disproportionately few women to “stretch” assignments — jobs above an individual’s personal rank – and disproportionately large numbers to “downstretch” assignments — those below an employee’s personal rank.
– Assigning disproportionately fewer women to deputy chief of mission jobs.
– Undervaluing women on their “potential” in annual ratings.
– Awarding disproportionately fewer women than men Superior Honor Awards.
• The preponderance of men in the best jobs could not occur by chance and must be the result of discrimination.
– In I years..nine women had been appointed deputy chief of mission out of 586 assignments – a situation that could occur randomly only once in 2,500 times.
– Women in the political “cone” were assigned to the consular “cone” so much more frequently than men that the odds of it happening were one in 100 million.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 7, No. 1 (1989), p. 32. Read the rest of this issue →
