When long-time humanitarian Margie Buchanan-Smith was interviewed for one of her first field posts – in Sudan in the 1980s – she was asked: “Will you burst out crying when you arrive?” “No,” she replied – and got the job. But when she arrived she was one of few women on the ground, and was always questioned if she was up to it.
Things have moved on since then: There are thousands of women working at all levels of the humanitarian sector, but when it comes to the top positions, at least in Western international NGOs and particularly in the field, staff are too often white and male,
