Diplomacy has existed for thousands of years. It used to be a man’s world but not anymore. More and more women are joining diplomatic services and they are excelling in this field.

What do diplomats actually do? Why were women discouraged from joining diplomatic services in the past?

According to Cambodian Ambassador to Indonesia Hor Nambora, diplomats work to achieve the strategic objectives of their national foreign policy.

“One of the primary duties of diplomats is to build and improve relations with their foreign host country. They have to promote their countries and protect the interests of fellow citizens in that country,” Ambassador Nambora said in his new book titled The Journey Of A Down-To-Earth Diplomat.

Diplomats have to travel frequently, sometimes to difficult places and conflict zones, as part of their jobs. This was why women were reluctant to join diplomatic services in the past. Traveling used to be difficult due to the lack of modern transportation, but now the situation has changed completely.

God Almighty created men and women equal.

Our top diplomat is Retno LP Marsudi, the first female foreign minister of Indonesia. She has done a good job from 2014 to 2019 as foreign minister and was reappointed by Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last October.

Indonesian women are willing to take on challenging jobs. According to the Foreign Ministry, more and more women have been showing interest in the diplomatic service over the last two decades. Now women constitute almost half of the new diplomats recruited by the ministry every year.

Though the number of women in the diplomatic service has been increasing rapidly in recent years, the percentage of female diplomats in the Foreign Ministry is still only 35.1 percent. This is a huge jump from just below 20 percent in the 1990s.

Currently, Indonesia has 11 female ambassadors.

Women joining diplomatic services is a global trend that began in Europe and has spread all over the world.

Romanian Ambassador to Indonesia Valerica Epure recently organized a gathering of female diplomats in Indonesia.

“Women can do any job in the diplomatic service. More Romanian women are joining the foreign service,” Ambassador Epure said at the gathering.

Have you ever heard about a feminist foreign policy?

In 2014, Sweden’s then-foreign minister Margot Wallstrom created the first-ever feminist foreign policy. In 2018, Sweden released a handbook about this policy.

According to the handbook, a feminist foreign policy applies a systematic gender equality perspective throughout the whole foreign policy agenda, which is designed to increase 4Rs — rights, representation, resources and reality — related to women in the foreign ministry.

Sweden, a Scandinavian country which is well-known for women’s empowerment and gender equality, has had a record eight female foreign ministers over the last 44 years.

Sweden’s current foreign minister is Ann Linde, a female politician from the Social Democratic Party, and its present ambassador to Indonesia is Marina Berg, a popular female diplomat.

The trend is also picking up in Asia.

For example, Myanmar, led by the well-known Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, has been witnessing more and more women joining its foreign service.

“Many women wanted to join the foreign service. Now we have four women who are serving as ambassadors, including me. The other three are in Germany, Norway and Czech Republic,” Myanmar’s Ambassador to Indonesia Ei Ei Khin Aye told The Jakarta Post recently.

Suu Kyi’s mother, Khin Kyi, was the first ambassadress of Myanmar, who was appointed as the country’s ambassador to India in 1960.

Among the Muslim-majority countries, Turkey has more than 60 female ambassadors, because it recognized that women play a key role in diplomacy.

“True diplomacy can only succeed if gender-equal leadership is implemented and fosters a strong presence of women in leadership roles, specifically women ambassadors,” said Danielle Khan in a recent paper published by the United States-based Turkish Heritage Organization. But the situation in the US, the sole superpower, under President Donald Trump is appalling. More than 70 percent of his ambassadorial nominees were men.

Indonesia should appoint more women as ambassadors in order to see the success of our diplomacy. This is in line with this year’s International Women’s Day (March 8) theme of #EachforEqual.

Female diplomats in some countries are proving that they are equal to their male colleagues, sometimes performing even better than men. In many countries, women still face discrimination in many fields, including in diplomatic services. It is time to act to move toward gender equality.

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