The portrait takes the discrepancy between the historiography of the legal section of the League of Nations Secretariat and its visual representation as a starting point to investigate the female workforce of the Legal Section. Article 7 of the Covenant of the League of Nations famously opened all positions within the permanent bureaucratic structure of the League equally for men and women, making the League one of the world's first equal opportunity employers. The chance to join the first truly international civil service, encouraged many women in the interwar years to work for the League. By combining macro- and micro perspectives Benjamin Auberer shows how the historical and spacial social contexts restricted the options of women in the Secretariat, but how the League introduced an unprecedented opportunity for women to enter the global stage.
Benjamin Auberer is a liaison librarian at LMU Munich and researches the Secretariat of the League of Nations as part of social history of international relations.