Petticoat Promise: Gender and the CIA in the #MeToo Era

摘要

When this investigation began, the chief concern was that the CIA would represent the standard microcosm of gender problems in the rest of society. In other words, the Agency would be as bad and lacking in real substantive progress as everywhere else. Reality, however, has shown a positive divergence in this area. From a top-down structural orientation, the CIA has shown an ability to embrace the need to examine itself in terms of gender advancement, going back decades no less, when very few industries were even bothering to ask such questions just ten years ago, and then take measurable steps to address shortcomings. This organizational trait has been maintained generationally, so that when new challenges emerge to show the Agency is not leading ideal standards, it has tried to figure out how to be better. From a structural perspective, instituting a system of improved recognition, advancement, promotion, and achievement, the CIA really is an industry worthy of praise and emulation. This does not mean it has solved the problem of gender equity/justice once and for all. But it does mean it has taken the issue as something to address, continuously, for a much longer time than many other industries and has made real progress where most others have not.