Dossier f38 - Hardy, Alison Taylor

File consists of a recording of Alison Hardy. Topics of the conversation include interviewer's Virginia background; Queen's graduates, embassy members, living near Arlington. Surname difficulty identifying women graduates of Queen's in Dept. of External Affairs. Respective choices of Elizabeth Way, Gail Sellers,to leave Dept. for motherhood, marriage; Sellers' 'brain power', happily forfeited career. Dept. regulation that women must surrender jobs upon marriage (altered 1955). Distinction between married women continuing work in Ottawa, later development of married women serving abroad with Dept. husbands (difficulty posting couples to identical area). john Sharpe. Hardy's 'educational' position in Dept. Press Office, close contact with people from all Dept. divisions. Anne Lagey (sp?). Current statistics of 3-4 thousand examination applicants for estimated 10 Dept. openings. Chaotic expansion of Dept. following ww11; hurried recruitment of personnel for new missions, etc. Lament of pre-War staff over impersonal Dept. atmosphere resulting from expansion; similar lament voiced today. Changes in Dept. housing: development from 1-13 buildings after WWII; recent centralization, decentralization schemes. Cross-Canada regional representation as one factor in Dept. recruiting programmes. Normative system of hiring women preferred by Public Service to quota hiring system: principle that proportion hired should reflect proportion of applicants. Revision of examination questions favouring male Anglophone applicants. Lack of discrimination against Canadian women diplomats by foreign diplomats, attributed to career basis of Canadian foreign service. Career security, absence of competition in foreign service, freeing women from pressure of comparison with males. Women's sometimes curious, prying reaction to Hardy's single career status; absence of overt resentment, jealousy. Boles' contention that, in the past, women's naivete kept them from seeing how they worked harder than men to achieve the same posts. Hardy's experience as sole Wren (W.R.N.S.) officer-delegate sitting on regular Navy committee: total shock of female presence to all-masculine Navy state of mind. Naive attitude of Latin American diplomat (1940s) unable to conceive of women as equal colleagues not sex objects; changing attitude to women diplomats abroad as well as at home. Boles' blatantly amusing treatment as sole woman diplomat at officers' luncheon in Columbo.//Hardy's position as single woman entering service at 33; relations with colleagues. Hobbs' rapport with male colleagues, infrequent contact with women socially or at work. Hardy's uninhibited outspokenness, attributed to influence of executive mother, sisters, lack of brothers, attendance at women's college. Boles' encouragement from father to attend university; mother's support, voiced over sisters' disapproval, of youthful entrance into External Affairs, departure for Moscow. Hobbs' early love of camping, travel; almost involuntary entrance into External Affairs during frantic war years - selection based on ability to type. Agnes McCloskey as generous, autocratic Dept. character; grateful, affectionate, humorous tributes from Hobbs, Hardy. Women's assumption of officers' work without officers' status during WWII; expansion of Dept., creation of first class of women officers (including Elizabeth MacCallum) following WWII, preventing common phenomenon of women 'stepping down' to accommodate men. Change in employee attitudes since WWII: emphasis on work itself giving way to emphasis on salary, benefits. Hardy's job in External Affairs as direct result of personal enthusiasm combined with naive style of government administration; contrast with administrative efficiency today. Hobbs' only recently awakened interest in Dept. promotional procedures. Controversy over public servants' right to strike: Boles' belief in government as an essential service, opposition to striking rights; Hardy's belief in compulsory arbitration. Hardy's belief that employee restlessness stems partly from job­specialized boredom; conclusion that old haphazard arrangements sometimes suited employees better. Better financial conditions following administrative reorganization: failure of old Dept. to adjust salaries according to escalating foreign costs of living. Dept. practice of seconding employees to other departments to increase career opportunity, mobility. Coincidence of new foreign postings with summer break in educational season; mobility resulting from change in assignments. Dept. emphasis on officer adaptability, breadth of experience; intentional development of generalists while acknowledging the value of specialists in certain areas. Foreign service career as a way of life rather than a part of life; satisfying personal involvement, sometimes dangerous degree of self-identification. Development of self through service abroad; unsuitability of indecisive or impressionable persons for foreign service; tolerance, open-mindedness, as requisite personality traits. Hardy's disabused assumption that U.S. Congress would function Iike Canadian Parliament. Difficulty adapting to ideologically abhorrent postings, e.g. Apartheid South Africa. Possibilities of interviews with specific officers returning from South Africa, Tanzania, Hong Kong, New York.