Honors Theses

Date of Award

Spring 5-7-2026

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Intelligence and Security Studies

First Advisor

Leslie Guelcher

Second Advisor

Samuel Scurry

Third Advisor

Mandy King

Relational Format

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

This thesis examines the persistent underrepresentation of women in the United States Intelligence Community (IC), with particular focus on the gap between women’s share of the IC workforce and of senior leadership positions, referred to throughout as the “senior rank gap.” This gap has persisted despite more than two decades of formal commitments to workforce diversification following 9/11.

This thesis employs a mixed-methods analytical approach, combining publicly available quantitative demographic data, primarily from Office of the Director of National Intelligence Annual Demographic Reports, with qualitative evidence from interviews, organizational surveys, and scholarly literature. An Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) structures the evaluation of two proposed explanations for the senior rank gap: discriminatory hiring and promotion practices (H1) and disproportionate attrition among women in early-to-mid career stages (H2). The analysis finds that formal hiring and promotion processes are likely not the primary drivers of the senior rank gap because women are hired at rates proportional to or greater than their workforce share and promoted at comparable rates as male peers. The evidence most consistently supports that attrition, seemingly concentrated among women at points and stages critical for senior advancement, is the primary mechanism sustaining the senior rank gap. Informal gendered barriers, including work-life conflict, the “motherhood penalty,” mentorship gaps, and a gendered credibility deficit, appear to contribute to this attrition. Intersectional data from FY 2023 further reveals that the senior rank gap is most prominent for minority women, whose attrition and representation patterns are distinct from non-minority women.

This thesis concludes that the IC’s career pipeline is losing a significant amount of female talent before the cumulative effects of equitable hiring and promotion can reach the senior ranks. The senior rank gap is therefore more likely the product of structural and cultural conditions the IC has not yet adequately addressed than of discriminatory formal processes. Meaningful progress toward greater gender equity at the senior levels of the IC will require not only continued gains in nominal hiring figures, but reform of the informal infrastructure that makes advancing to senior leadership disproportionately difficult for women in the IC.

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