SOCIETY 372 /2017

WOMEN AMBASSADORS
INTERVIEW CANADA
„At the end of the day,
you are still a mum“
SOCIETY spoke with H.E. Heidi Hulan about the role
of female ambassadors and the gender parity in the
Canadian government.
You are the permanent
representative of Canada
to Austria, Slovakia and
the International Organizations
in Vienna and are
the mother of a four year
old daughter. How do you combine these
very different roles?
As you can imagine I have been thinking
a great deal lately about these different
roles of being a mother as well as
Ambassador. The reality is that being a
working parent – whatever your profession
– is challenging, period. This is true
for both men and women: nowadays,
my male colleagues increasingly have as
many home duties as my female ones.
Happily, in policy terms national governments
including Canada’s are starting to
catch up to this reality. In my country,
we benefit both from generous maternity
leave and six months paternity leave for
the fathers. The latter is critical for women,
because it has begun to normalize pa-
Fotos: Society/pobaschnig
64 | SOCIETY 2_2017