Traditionally a virtually all-male sphere, diplomacy has been considered one of many masculinized institutions of international politics (for one of very few treatments of gender and diplomacy, see Cynthia Enloe 1990, Bananas, Beaches & Bases. Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. University of California Press). Writing in the late 1980s, Enloe presented diplomatic work as a male world, guided by norms of masculinity and inhabited by men. “Men are seen as having the skills and resources that the government needs if its international status is to be enhanced. They are presumed to be the diplomats” (Enloe 1990:97). In this paper, I claim that although diplomacy may have been a man’s world, there is also a history of casting diplomacy as “feminine” and treating statesmen who favor negotiation over war as “effeminate.” I explore this notion by examining US feminizations of diplomatic practice during the past decade. The paper starts with a reading of debates about diplomacy and force in central US general audience journals on foreign policy, such as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, and in biographies and portraits of diplomats. Although diplomacy is indeed infused with scripts of masculinity, I claim that the masculine standing of diplomacy and the diplomat is unstable and susceptible to feminization. The paper then explores some of the ways in which central diplomatic practice – of negotiation, gossip, dinners, attention to dress/manners – as well as its French origins render diplomacy susceptible to feminization. Diplomacy may be particularly prone to feminization during periods and contexts of militarism, such as contemporary US, where so many seem so enthralled with military power.
