International Feminist Journal of Politics
May 13, 2021 | Flavia Bellieni Zimmermann
Not Always Diplomatic: An Australian Woman’s Journey through International Affairs
by Sue Boyd, Crawley, University of Western Australia Publishing, 2020, 304
Diplomacy and positions of political leadership have long been regarded as a man’s world. Nevertheless, from the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth, the modern world witnessed unprecedented societal changes with regards to women’s participation in politics, from gaining voting rights to getting elected to office, and women are increasingly navigating traditionally male-dominated environments such as diplomacy and politics. Sue Boyd’s memoir Not Always Diplomatic: An Australian Woman’s Journey through International Affairs gives a fascinating account of the challenges faced by Boyd and other women joining the Australian foreign service in the second half of the twentieth century, and of the ground-breaking work done by this generation of women in achieving positions of power throughout Australian society.
Boyd’s powerful storytelling shines throughout this memoir. She brings to the fore gender biases experienced throughout her career, in particular the assumption that women should be given “easier tasks.” Even later in her career, sexism kept haunting her. As she reflects in Chapter 8, during her posting as Australian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, local foreign service personnel assumed that she was the High Commissioner’s wife, instead of being there in her own right. However, sexism could not hold back her trailblazing career in diplomacy.
Not Always Diplomatic goes beyond conventional foreign affairs books or biographies. Boyd’s storytelling is personal, courageous, and engaging, making it a fireside chat during which she candidly divulges her inner thoughts and the challenges encountered as a woman in a traditionally male domain. She shares her reflections on past accomplishments, her personal life and the decision not to have children, mistakes, and self-doubts, and gives her opinions on key world events. Her perspective is illuminating. She goes through the intricate complexities of a career in foreign affairs and the decisions required, as well as the societal changes still needed both within Australian society and worldwide with regard to women’s empowerment, the role of diversity and inclusion, and persistent gender biases in the workplace. '
The first part of the book delves into Boyd’s family background, youth, and time as the University of Western Australia’s first female guild president. In the second part of the book, she narrates experiences during her early days as a young woman joining the Department of External Affairs (now the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)), and reflects on her life and career as an INTERNATIONAL FEMINIST JOURNAL OF POLITICS Australian diplomat, including in an iconic chapter titled “Being a Woman and Some Ideas on Career Progression.”
A considerable part of this book is dedicated to her time in the Australian foreign service, giving first-hand insight into her career, historical events, and the decisions that she made during her postings. In Chapter 4, for instance, she writes about her early days with the Department of External Affairs, her training as a young female diplomat, and the low expectations of women’s capabilities within the foreign service. In Chapter 5, she reflects on her first posting in Portugal and how the subsequent Carnation Revolution was “extremely beneficial” to her career. As the first Australian officer to return to Canberra from Lisbon after the revolution, her mastery of the Portuguese language made her an asset when armed conflict erupted in Dili, the capital of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor. She was given the task of setting up a small temporary office in Darwin to monitor events in East Timor, including public radio broadcasts in Dili and refugee arrivals in Darwin. However, because she was a woman she was not posted to Dili.
The book’s key passages can be found in Chapters 6 and 7. In Chapter 6, Boyd tells stories about her second posting as First Secretary and Deputy Head of Mission at the Australian Embassy in East Germany in the 1970s. When the Cold War ended, she discovered that she was the subject of a 900-page-long Stasi file, which she describes with great detail and refined humor. She candidly argues that many were “outraged, betrayed and shocked” (104) when they found out about their own files, but contends that in her case “I was not shocked. I had known I would be under surveillance and had been confident that I was doing nothing in secret and nothing which could cause harm” (105). Nevertheless, the level of detailed information in her file is impressive, highlighting the extent of intelligence-gathering practices during the Cold War era.
Chapter 7 recounts her time in New York in the 1980s as a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations, when nuclear non-proliferation was originally a key element in Australia’s foreign policy agenda. This chapter records senior Australian diplomats’ sexist remarks as well as discussions of Australia’s shifting position on nuclear disarmament that took place over hamburgers. Here, as throughout the book, Boyd intermingles deep reflections on foreign policy and gender biases that still persist today with a witty sense of humor.
In brief, Not Always Diplomatic is a complex book of substantive historical significance. It gives first-hand insight into the intricacies of the diplomatic world from a woman’s point of view. Her personable style reveals the human side of diplomacy, where decisions are made by men and women who have their limitations and weaknesses just like anyone else. The book not only gives an overview of Boyd’s work as a female diplomat throughout the second half of the twentieth century until her retirement from DFAT in 2003, but is also a step-by-step guide to the workings of the Australian foreign service and the role of a diplomat’s decision making during postings, all narrated with great candor.
Overall, Not Always Diplomatic sheds light on structural gender biases within foreign affairs, an issue widely overlooked by contemporary scholarship on gender and diplomacy (see Aggestam and Towns 2019), as well as the role 2 BOOK REVIEW played by traditional masculinities in shaping the symbolic figure of the “diplomat” (Towns 2020). It is indispensable reading for all those with an interest in gender and diplomacy, foreign affairs, Australian political history, women’s rights, and women’s empowerment in the workplace.
Notes on contributor
Flavia Bellieni Zimmermann is an international relations analyst with focus on Latin America and Brazil, and a Teaching Fellow in the School of Social Science, Political Science and International Relations at the University of Western Australia. She is affiliated to the University of Western Australia Centre for Muslim States and Societies. Her research interests include Brazilian politics and society; women in the Global South; gender and politics; comparative studies; human rights; migration, religion, and gender; and populism and gender.
References
Aggestam, Karin, and Ann Towns. 2019. “The Gender Turn in Diplomacy: A New Research Agenda.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 21 (1): 9–28. Towns, Ann. 2020. “‘Diplomacy Is a Feminine Art’: Feminised Figurations of the Diplomat.” Review of International Studies 46 (5): 573–593.
To cite this article
Flavia Bellieni Zimmermann (she/her/hers) (2021): Not Always Diplomatic: An Australian Woman’s Journey through International Affairs, International Feminist Journal of Politics,
DOI: 10.1080/14616742.2021.1920449