Women in Suits:
How Women Have Impacted the Intelligence Industry Throughout History

     Within the doors of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, men and women alike dressed in freshly ironed suits and carrying heavy briefcases protect the security of our nation. However, sixty-nine years ago women in suits were not seen as efficient, sustainable workers in the male-dominated CIA. Six years after its founding in 1953, a panel of women was created to internally review the progression of female opportunities throughout the Agency after female agents grew frustrated with their inability to move forward. This panel, mocked by many male counterparts, was sarcastically dubbed the Petticoat Panel. Its findings brought forth pressing evidence of women’s inability to be appointed to higher-ranking positions. The 1953 Petticoat Panel of twenty-two women representatives reviewed the stagnation of professional opportunities for females within the CIA by conducting surveys of low-ranking offices and presented evidence that women were not being given the same opportunities as men.

     The Central Intelligence Agency has identified its struggle with inequality for women's positions since its founding. Upon his induction as the fifth director of the CIA, Allen Dulles was asked by female employees his thoughts on the CIA’s battle with gender inequities. Dulles was quick to order an internal review and created a panel of twenty-two women representatives tasked with carrying it out. The new director requested the panel to be composed of long-term women who ranged on the U.S civil service pay scale, known as the General Schedule, between Grades GS-11 to GS-14 (R. 2). Allen Dulles, being the first to address the inequality issue, was adamant about fair representation of different offices and backgrounds. Three months after these “wise gals” popped the question, the panel formed and became the first study ever to record the status of women in the CIA.

     The 1950s was a period of new opportunities for women that did not involve housework or housewifery. Women made up the majority of all teaching, nursing, and secretary positions, “creating a common stereotype that women went to college to get a "Mrs." degree, meaning a husband” (PBS). Women were not as educated as men, so very few could score higher-level positions. However, stepping out of the house meant stepping into a man’s world. “A common joke was that the CIA was pale, male, and Yale. Recruitment narrowly focused on elite institutions that excluded students of color, women, and other minorities. Few were hired and even fewer made it into the ranks of senior management or leadership” (Miner and Temes 9). Women, especially the minority, could not ingratiate themselves in work matters that men had already been working in for years.

     The Petticoat Panel started their investigation by conducting surveys to reveal the percentages of women in certain offices, but had a difficult time gathering classified information that rendered parts of their investigation impossible. People (men) thought that gender discrimination was not a major problem the CIA faced. Data given to the panel was under oath that it could only be used for panel purposes since it was highly classified information (R. 3). The panel interviewed women both in the country and overseas by dividing themselves among four different areas in which to review: professional women in headquarters, clerical personnel, the general status of women in the agency and in the field. Shortly into its investigation “the Personnel Office refused to provide statistics on the grounds that such data was classified” (R. 3). Because information was confidential, the final report of the Petticoat Panel was kept classified and unable to make as much of an impact as it could have in the years preceding it.

     Yet the final report of the panel was not positive and confirmed that there was, in fact, a large standstill for opportunities in the agency. “No women held senior executive positions, no woman held an office higher than branch chief, and only 7% of branch chiefs were women” (“From Typist” 8). All women were in positions of low grades and occupied all positions of power one to two grades lower than men. The concentration was highest in research and reports positions (roughly a G-5), but the number of women got smaller within the higher grades they reviewed until no number of women were found above a G-14 position. 19% of women were in a higher grade than G-7, yet 69% of all men were, and only two women held a position in the G-14 grade (R. 7). The panel sums up the neglect of female intelligence in one of its final statements: “It has not, in common with other employers, taken full advantage of the womanpower resources available to it” (“The Petticoat Panel”).

     The results document a halt in progression to professional positions like those of grades higher than a G-14 by recording the accumulation of women in positions below it. The Petticoat Panel’s final report confirmed the ongoing issue of professional female importance, or lack thereof, within the Central Intelligence Agency. In hindsight, most women were employed at the GS-5 level without hope of ever making it to the 18% of women in professional positions or ranks of higher class (R. 8). These findings document gross inequities of professional women within higher ranks. The panel, therefore, was the first voice of power the women of the CIA had to enact change within their workplace.

     The final report was to answer the questions women first asked on career opportunities for women in the CIA, but the CSB did not see to their suggestions. Reactions to the report were composed of 1950s traditional attitudes and opinions that were considered the norm by the decade's standards. The women’s panel submitted recommendations on how they think the issue should be addressed: positions should be given solely based on the individual’s qualifications and not gender, and promotions should be awarded on those same qualifications (R. 6). The report observed that a "variety of attitudes and subjective judgments entered into the final decision of an official responsible for the selection of personnel for initial appointment or subsequent promotions and reassignments” (R. 9). The women’s plea was answered with the 1950s attitude that women were uneducated, incapable, and all too often were not willing to do the work of a man.

     The male-dominated Career Service Board was unconvinced women did not have fair treatment. The CSB disregarded the investigation because they argued that women had better opportunities in the CIA than in any other agency. Women had higher wages, and there was a higher number of women employed in the CIA than in any other agency. Unfortunately for the panel, “the Career Services Board was made up of all men. Board comments detailed significant discrimination not uncommon of the era with references to losing women because of family commitments, therefore it was not worth time to invest in them” (Miner and Temes 9). Officials believed once a woman became a G-12, it was around the time she got married and moved away, which made them unreliable (“The Petticoat Panel”). The CSB’s beliefs contribute to 1950s gender attitudes towards women, while its response contributes to the idea of deep-rooted gender discrimination within the CIA.

     No women were present at the 23rd of November 1953 CSB meeting. The board, by opinion, unfairly made decisions without any representative of the cause present. The lack of representatives on the panel shows there were no women in high-ranking positions in which could defend the cause. Officials patted the backs of those on the panel, calling it a well thought out yet ‘very feminine report’ (R. 10). In its final response, the Career Service Board declared “that the status of women in the Agency does not call for urgent corrective action-but rather for considered and deliberate improvement primarily through the education of supervisors” (R. 12). The conclusion of the Career Service Board, abundant in rude commentary and unhelpful premises, further prove the attitude towards women present in the Agency in 1953.

     The investigation of the Petticoat Panel and its findings legitimized the stand-still progression of opportunities while exposing misogynistic tendencies within decision-making in the agency. Though the CIA provided jobs other than teaching or household labor for women, such employment did not take advantage of women’s capabilities and, in fact, limited them. The Petticoat Panel’s final conclusion and proposals were turned away because women had higher wages and better careers than women not in the Agency; therefore, they saw nothing further needed to be improved. Not only the response but the complete disregard of the 1953 women’s panel further shows its need. The panel’s existence and outcomes were recently declassified to the world, but reviewing its documents now in the modern world illustrates what it was like for female officers in our nation's greatest intelligence task force and how far central intelligence has come from not-so-humble beginnings.

     Brought about to answer the frustrations of oppressed female officers in the agency, the Petticoat Panel, despite criticism, conducted surveys that revealed concentrations of women in low-grade offices incapable of obtaining higher-ranking positions such as men. Though the Career Service Board did little to incorporate the panel’s solutions, the confirmation that gender inequality was present within the agency would be revisited and reworked in the near future. This all-female panel of twenty-two representatives was established to investigate discrimination in women’s career opportunities. Being presented with gross inequities of women stuck in the G-14 grades and lower despite some having more qualifications for offices given to men, the CSB ignored the panel’s requests for change, and the Petticoat Panel was forgotten— until now. These women did not wear petticoats, but suits and badges, while facing the harsh realities of the male-dominated 1950s. However, the 1953 panel of women instituted what would be a strong feminist movement into the next decade whilst demonstrating strong-willed females who sought change in government workplaces and took gender inequality head-on within the Unites States’ Central Intelligence Agency.

 

 

Works Cited

 

“From Typist to Trailblazer: The Evolving View of Women in the CIA’s Workforce - CIA.”                Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed 19 September, 2022.

 

Miner, Michael, and Lindsay Temes. The Past, Present, and Future of Diversity, Equity, and           Inclusion in the American Intelligence Community, Apr. 2022. Harvard Kennedy School.           Accessed 19 September 2022.

 

“Mrs. America: Women’s Roles in the 1950s.” Pbs.org, WGBH Educational Foundation, 2000,             Accessed 19 September 2022.

 

“The Petticoat Panel: CIA's First Study -- in 1953 -- on the Role of Women in                       Intelligence.” Central Intelligence Agency, Accessed 19 September 2022. R., Jacqueline.

 

“The Petticoat Panel: A 1953 Study of the Role of Women in the CIA’s Career Service.”               Central Intelligence Agency, 30 October 2013, Accessed 19 September 2022.