Where do women feature in the history of diplomacy?

The International Day of Women in Diplomacy celebrates the drivers of global change, bridging parliaments and international platforms through inclusive leadership who are still largely underrepresented. (Statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington D.C.) Tinnaporn Sathapornnanont/Shutterstock, CC BY

On June 24, the United Nations marks the International Day of Women in Diplomacy. The occasion invites us to celebrate the slow but visible increase of women in foreign ministries, embassies, and international negotiations. Yet it also prompts a deeper question: what counts as diplomacy, and who gets recognised as a diplomatic actor?

That question lies at the heart of the European funded research project TheoFem which explores the international engagements of Catholic laywomen in the decades following the Second World War.