"They need to be aggressive in their outreach," Jackson Lee said. But then, "it hit that 11 or 12 percent and just plateaued." That plateau is not a great place to be. Riggs said the percentage of female agents steadily increased when she was on the job. virtually devoid of diversity, whether it was gender or race." He recalled a visit to the agency training facility in Laurel, Md., where "there was not a single African-American in the class, maybe two Hispanics and a few women. The Secret Service still has some work to do," said Rep. "That doesn't reflect America, and once you look at the overlay of race. The 11 percent is a difficult position for the agency to be in. "There are some people who don't want to make that commitment." Particularly for women who are primary caregivers, "that's a difficult position to be in." "That requires people to be away from home for a significant amount of time," she added. The protection mission separates it even from other high-stress law-enforcement gigs. "Being a special agent in the Secret Service, it's not just a job, it's not just a career," she said. Riggs cites the tremendous toll the job takes on personal lives. Those stats aren't good, but at least they are a little better than the 11 percent women that Donovan said is the case with special agents. About 25 percent of the whole workforce is female. Of those employed, seven of 45 special agents in charge of field offices are women, as are four deputy assistant directors out of 20. Agency officials have engaged an outside recruitment service to find female applicants, and recruiters visit women's colleges and participate in dozens of career fairs that focus on women. Donovan, a special agent and spokesman for the agency, said its recruitment division targets pools of candidates in an effort to better diversify its workforce. The agency runs the expected recruitment and diversity routes, but it doesn't have many women to show for it.Įdwin M. It's a status the agency says it wants to shake.ĭiversity "is a continued agency priority that is critical to our success," says its website, which also promotes "a comprehensive, proactive, model Equal Opportunity Program that is integrated into the agency's mission." But there aren't many of them to act good, bad or in any other way as agents in a force that still looks like a fraternity, a brotherhood, a good ol' boys club. Of course, women also can act like "knuckleheads" ù President Obama's word. The first five female special agents were sworn in the next year. The first woman in what is now the agency's Uniformed Division was hired in 1970. When she joined the agency, women carrying guns was still a novel idea. She said there's no way to know whether more women in Cartagena would have made a difference, adding the question "does a disservice to men who serve honorably." It would be a lot more boring, but never a problem."īarbara Riggs was the agency's highest-ranking female, deputy director, until her retirement in 2006 after 31 years of service. Maloney cited a former agent quoted in Sunday's Washington Post who said: "If every boss was Paula Reid, the Secret Service would never have a problem. Paula Reid, the special agent in charge of the Miami office who was in Cartagena at the time, ordered the offending personnel home. Ironically, the first agent to investigate the scandal was a woman. Greater gender diversity can set a different tone in "recreational liberties," said Rep. The probability of the scandal happening "would have been reduced significantly" if there were more women on the Cartagena detail, said Rep. There is very little diversity among them ù about 90 percent of Secret Service agents are men. No one can answer that with any certainty, but the scandal does raise the issue of gender diversity among those who are willing to die for the president. Would more female agents have made the sex scandal involving special agents and Colombian prostitutes less likely? They have other choices.Maybe the Secret Service has too much testosterone. Female secret agents Vera Eriksen: The Second World Wars most enigmatic spy Seven of the bravest female secret agents Mathilde Carr: The Second World Wars. Usually male, their spymasters have double standards: a woman who sleeps with the enemy is labelled a whore, whereas James Bond in fiction or Sidney Reilly in real life used women’s bodies as toys or tools and were heroes.Īs Mathilde Carré, who betrayed her Resistance comrades to the Gestapo, said at her postwar trial, ‘It is different for the women. Women spies run all the risks of male agents, plus sexual violence. Yet, none of them had the right to vote for a government or open a bank account. In the Second World War, women of many nations fought the Nazis, risking the firing squad or decapitation by axe in a German prison. In occupied Belgium and northern France 1914-18 there were several thousand women actively working against the Kaiser’s troops. Forget the abundant spy fiction, espionage is not just a boys’ game.
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