ABSTRACT
The history of women, gender, and diplomacy is undoubtedly a history of change. This chapter reveals, this is a story of continuity as well as change in the forms of agency that women were able to exercise in foreign policy decision-making processes and debates, set against a shifting backdrop of beliefs about sexual difference and its relevance in international politics. It argues that recovering women's agency is not just important for understanding the gendered nature of diplomacy as a profession and political practice, but is valuable for illuminating the locus of power and the shifting contours of political sovereignty and statecraft over time. It draws on recent research by historians, including the growing body of work on the role of queens consort and regnant, princesses, ladies-in-waiting, chamberers, and wives, which demonstrates conclusively that women were present in, not absent from, diplomacy in the era preceding their formal inclusion in national diplomatic services in the twentieth century.
