Unfortunately, the number of women in senior diplomatic positions is seriously underrepresented, and women are still struggling to break into the diplomatic hierarchy without settling for a compromise. It took the United Kingdom 191 years to finally appoint the first female Head of Mission, and in 2010, women fill only 21.8% of senior management positions from 260 diplomatic missions.
As a traditionally male domain, existing power structures within the diplomatic infrastructure remain to reinforce gender inequalities and overt discriminatory practices, making it difficult for women to enter diplomacy at the highest position.
Many theories of International Relations such as Realism ignore women and their impact on international relations and believe that international relations are gender neutral. The study of international relations has been silent on gender issues. Even the academic reserve is compounded by the fact that the domain of international practice is an especially male-dominated reserve. In conventional ideology, women are not suited for such responsibilities and cannot be relied on matters of security and crisis. There is also a wide assumption among scholars and theorists of separation between the spheres of gender and international relations. There is an conjecture that relations between states can be studied