WIIS Report Summary

What women in peace and security careers within the federal government are saying about their experiences is vital to informing improvements. Currently the best guide to knowing what is happening that helps women break through the glass ceiling is found in a report released by Women in International Security (WIIS). This report identified three major components needed to better promote and retain females up the career ladder specifically in peace and security careers: first, a formal mentorship program for all females in peace and security careers; job flexibility to allow for work/life balance; targeted leadership trainings for female recruits and mid-management.
While the study included a broad range of perspectives, these three issues were agreed upon across the board. As well as the fact that these things are needed because women remain unrepresented and are not receiving the support they need in order to advance into leadership positions. The study reflected a very hopeful tone, that these changes could make a true difference in women’s work experience, satisfaction, and advancement opportunities. Throughout the report women mentioned USAID and the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program as being two examples of progress in all three problem areas. The rest of the agencies should model their efforts after these examples of best practices that have seen results.
Proposed Components for U.S. NAP
The WIIS report identified three major reforms that should be included in the U.S. NAP to ensure greater participation of women at all levels of foreign policy creation and particularly in the top level decision-making positions. To these three interventions, I add one more based on observations of best practices in other E.U. countries that have had better progress at approaching gender parity in the higher bureaucratic positions. Together, these make a group of four interventions necessary to making an effective NAP for the U.S.:
1. Training on two levels: First, trainings for people currently in top level and
management positions on the holistic approach to promoting and retaining women in their agencies. Second, provide leadership development trainings for women who demonstrate an interest. Many participants in the WIIS report expressed concern over the paucity of opportunities for career development within the peace and security sectors of the government. These trainings would not necessarily need to be exclusively for women, however, there should be targeted trainings that particularly address the challenges women face due to social perceptions of leadership roles.
This need for training has also been recognized in the business world. A recent report published by Deloitte Consulting calls for “acknowledging and investing in women”, saying that doing so “can yield a significant return—a return known as the gender dividend.” Deloitte has long been a leader in making the business case for parity and within its own offices has had great success through training approaches similar to the above recommendations.
2. Mentoring programs created and supported to ensure sustained relationships:
“Women in the [WIIS] study experienced a direct correlation between mentorship and professional advancement.” Government offices are no exception to the general saying that “its not what you know but who you know”, making mentoring relationships vital to the success of anyone in any career. Creating the opportunity for women newly entering the peace and security career track to be mentored by someone in a leadership position will purposefully give the support needed to aiding these women’s successful career advancement. However, once created, these mentorship programs must be sustained and continually encouraged through various incentives to the mentors to stay engaged with their mentees.
3. Flexibility for better work-life balance: Across all careers, women and men
face hard decisions of prioritizing work versus their personal lives. While traditionally this problem has been associated solely with women, it is no longer the cultural assumption that women will stay home, sacrificing careers for children. The desire for greater work-life balance is expressed by men and women alike. In the WIIS study, participants expressed that while rules on paper allowed for flexibility, “key work-life balance arrangements are not yet institutionalized uniformly across the government.”
In order to retain talent and not lose the investment in human capital, government offices need to have holistic approaches to offering all workers greater flexibility. Two examples of this are paternity leave and part-time work arrangements. Leave for both parents during and following a pregnancy or for emergency childcare should be instituted across all government sectors. Men and women should have the option to work part-time from home for a period of time without setbacks in career advancement.
4. Improved data collection, monitoring and evaluation: For any of the above
recommendations to be successfully, they should be accompanied with changes in the personnel management method of tracking gender-related data. Many of the EU countries with NAPs included specific references to human resources management being responsible for recording gender rations. This data should track not only the gender make-up of current employees, but also each of the following groups: application pools according to sector and GS level; new hires; training participants; mentorship programs; promotion-eligible individuals and those who received promotions, etc. In order to accurately target change and track outcomes, statistical analysis is required on a more detailed level than is possible with currently available data.
The WIIS report remarked that “outside of the military ranks, the statistics on civilian women in specific government positions are not easily accessible. While government agencies track general statistics on recruitment, retention, and attrition, the numbers often do not capture enough information on how women are experiencing barriers to advancement and when they are choosing to leave government service.”
These four interventions should be directly addressed in the NAP for the U.S. in order to institutionalize a gender-aware approach at all levels of government careers that shape peace and security policy and operations. Once again, these are not all-inclusive and the purpose of this paper is solely to make recommendations addressing the domestic aspects of the NAP. These recommendations promote a strong approach to gender-mainstreaming in both DOD and DOS. Since there will be many opponents to this notion, the following pages address possible responses to this opposition.