Over the last few weeks, we have seen a lot in the Korean press about the particular challenges women face in the workplace during an economic downturn, with one article citing the disproportionate impact that the issue of irregular versus permanent employment has on women. Figures were also released showing that Korea has one of the greatest gender-based income disparities between men and women in any of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. The U.S. was actually slightly below average among OECD countries as well. With these issues in mind, my meetings with two professional women’s groups earlier this month were spirited and timely.
As I prepared to speak with the Women Leaders for Science and Technology, and a few days later with the American Chamber of Commerce Professional Women’s Committee, I read the transcript of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s February meeting with Ewha University students. I was struck anew by the many questions Secretary Clinton received from young women probing to understand and learn from the challenges she had faced in her life and career, particularly as a woman balancing work and family.
With panelist at the 21st Century Women Leader’s Forum
A group photo with participants from the Korea Federation of Women’s Science & Technology Association (KOFWST) after giving remarks on "The Role of Science and Technology in Building a 21st Century U.S.-Korea Alliance"
at the 21st Century Women Leaders' Forum
Not surprisingly, these challenges were also of interest to both groups of women with which I met, as was the question of to what extent women in leadership positions can or should be “role models” for other women, whether in science, technology, business or diplomacy. I thought about what Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the first female to be named President of Harvard University, said when she was asked upon taking office in July 2007 how she felt about being Harvard’s first woman president. She emphasized, "I'm not the woman president of Harvard. I'm the president of Harvard. I have to meet all the same standards. I have to be a good president, a great president."
When I cited this comment, I saw women’s heads nod in agreement; Korean women too know what it’s like to be the “first woman” in one job or another.
President of Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust (Official Harvard University photo), used with permission
But, as I also told my Korean audiences, I was interested to read something else President Faust said some months after she had assumed the Harvard presidency. She said she started receiving letters from people all over the world. Little girls in China wrote her saying, "Now I know I can be a woman scientist." Fathers of infant daughters sent her letters saying, "I know that my daughter can do anything." President Faust even received a letter from a 97- year- old graduate of Radcliffe, Harvard’s sister college when women couldn’t go to Harvard, saying “Now I know why I lived so long.” Such reactions made her realize what an impact her appointment had in inspiring others, and in providing a role model.
I can relate to President Faust’s experience, especially in the reaction I’ve received since becoming U.S. Ambassador to Korea. Like Dr. Faust, I never thought of myself as coming to Seoul to be the “woman Ambassador”. I am here to be the U.S. Ambassador to Korea, and to be the best Ambassador I can. At the same time, like President Faust, I have been moved and sometimes even a little overwhelmed, by the intense interest and enthusiasm my appointment has generated, particularly from girls and women. I am always especially pleased when fathers approach me asking if they can photograph their daughters with me, telling me their daughters find in me encouragement for their own aspirations.
I became interested in a diplomatic career while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea, and in fact I took the Foreign Service entrance examination here in Seoul at the Embassy in 1975. It surprises people now to hear that until the early 1970s a woman Foreign Service officer had to resign upon marriage. Until this rule was abolished, it kept the corps of American female diplomats both small and junior.
I began my Foreign Service career in 1978, and I have served in a dozen or so assignments, both in Washington and abroad. Typical of my generation, in more than half of those positions, including in China, Korea, and Northern Ireland, I was the first woman to hold them. But in most of them, happily I can say I was not for long the only woman to hold them. We see the same pattern with our Secretaries of State. It was 200 years before the United States had in Madeleine Albright its first female Secretary of State. She was not the only woman to serve as Secretary of State for long, however; Condoleezza Rice followed within a few years, and then our current Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Despite all this, there is still a long way to go. As Secretary Clinton told Ewha students, “We need all of our people's talents to be on the very forefront of setting a course of peace, progress, and prosperity." Women and men together must participate fully to realize our shared vision for the region and the world in the 21st Century.