The Petticoat Panel. Bad Name For A Bunch Of Badass Women.

By Karen and Erica

One of us has a strong interest in the CIA, and very much enjoyed reading Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage, by Nathalia Holt. The CIA was founded in 1947, and, perhaps surprisingly, brilliant women worked there from the outset, though not always with total appreciation.Wise Gals is about these women.

Surprisingly, way back in 1953 the CIA put together a group, with the questionable name Petticoat Panel, to consider the role of women in the CIA. The CIA website actually talks about the panel-–and about the women who were instrumental in its creation:

Following a 1953 address to officers in CIA’s 10th Agency Orientation Course, newly sworn-in Director Allen W. Dulles fielded a slew of questions from a group of “wise gals” – a name given later by a senior CIA manager – who wanted the Director’s thoughts on the role of women at CIA. Pressing the new Director on his earlier promise to “devote the balance of [his] time [at CIA] to build up the Agency’s esprit de corps, its morale, its effectiveness, and its place in the government of the United States,” the women asked “(1) Why are women hired at a lower grade than men? (2) Do you think that women are given sufficient recognition in the CIA? (3) And as the new Director of CIA, are you going to do something about the professional discrimination against women?”

The questions from these ‘wise gals’ would prove to be the catalyst for CIA’s first ever study on the role of women in intelligence and, more broadly, on discrimination in the workplace. Dulles quickly mandated that the Inspector General (IG) look into the matter, sharing; “I think women have a very high place in this work, and if there is discrimination, we’re going to see that it’s stopped.”

Of course, discrimination was not stopped. The CIA website goes on:

Concluding that “except for a few rather narrow fields, career opportunities for women have been limited in the Agency in nearly every professional area,” the Petticoat Panel delivered to the CSB a report that showed very real discrimination against Agency women and provided a list of recommendations to change the culture.

This declassified monograph, researched and written by historians from CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, records the response to their demand: 

The panel then cited a list of what it referred to as “opinions expressed by Agency officials,” and by those in industry and other government agencies. While any one of these comments would give pause today, they were considered the norm in 1953.  

• “Women are not qualified to perform in those positions which they do not now occupy.” 

• “Women won’t travel” and “men are necessary in Departmental jobs since they must be used as replacements for overseas personnel.” 

• “Women are more emotional and less objective in their approach to problems than men. They are not sufficiently aggressive.” 

• “Women can’t work under the pressures of .urgency and special considerations inherent in much of the Agency’s work. ” 

• Men dislike working ” under the supervision of women and are reluctant to accept them on an equal basis as professional associates. 

• “Women are undesirable candidates for long-range employment because they frequently interrupt or terminate their employment for marriage or family reasons.” (The panel admitted that “it is true that the employer cannot be sure that a woman employee will not elect to resign upon marriage, or to devote more time to her family, or that she will require a leave of absence…There is, however, no certainty that a man will remain permanently or even for a stated number of years.”)  

• “Men dislike working under the supervision of women and are reluctant to accept them on an equal basis as professional associates.” (This latter statement is reflected in the performance appraisals of the period, as there was one category which asked the level of the ratee’s supervisory competence “when immediate subordinates include members of the opposite sex.”) • ‘

• The economic responsibilities of women are not as great as those of men. Women should not be employed in higher paying positions and deprive men of those opportunities. Women should not be employed at all when men are in need of’ ernployment.”

Ever heard this sort of thing before?

Of course, we cannot judge attitudes then by the laws and mores of today. Instead, we should be impressed by the fact that there was a Petticoat Panel at all. Perhaps a little less impressed by the name of a lunch to discuss women in the CIA that occurred in 1972.

In November of 1972, William Colby, who was then serving as the Agency’s Executive Director and Comptroller, hosted a lunch for a group of female employees to discuss the issue. Within a month of the lunch-which was referred to as the “Lib Lunch”-plans were in process to establish a Women’s Advisory Panel with a Chairwoman, who would be designated as the Federal Women’s Program Coordinator (FWPC) for CIA.

You wil not be surprised to hear that is not the end of the story. In 2007, an analyst, Bonnie Hershberg, helped instill among Agency leaders the understanding that CIA must use to their full potential the talents of men and women from a wide variety of racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Upon promotion to the Senior Intelligence Service, Ms. Hershberg organized a group of senior women—the SIS Women’s Group—to network and promote diversity at all levels. She and others over the years continued to analyze the reasons for the failure of women to succeed in force at the CIA. Her efforts directly resulted in a significant increase in the number of women and minorities in critical positions.

And in 2015 Gina Haspell was named director of the CIA.

We were surprised to learn that the CIA would be ahead of other governmental and non-governmental groups in focusing on, and episodically, at least, attempting to improve the treatment of the women in the service. We were not surprised that progress was slow. But it seems the CIA was trying.

Perhaps, from the beginning, the CIA understood that if it was to succeed in its critical mission, it had to hire, and retain, the best and the brightest. And the toughest.