This paper examines bureaucratic resistance to implementing policy mandates on sex equity. Three facets of a women's program are examined: 1) the legislative and organizational history of Women in Development (WID) within the Agency for International Development (AID); 2) the resources available to the WID Office within the context of AID policies; and 3) the interaction between the office and outside constituencies at the point of interface--the feminist WID political appointee. The data was derived from the author's field notes, internal memoranda and documents, and participant observation. In recognition of how women have been excluded, even disadvantaged by past national and international efforts, the Percy Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act in 1973 established as policy for AID that women are to be integrated in all development efforts in developing countries. Although the WID office is charged with the broad mandate to integrate women through project review, studies, linkage with constituents, and international coordination, its annual program budget has been limited to one million dollars or less since inception. The WID office is constrained in its structural location to an exhorter role, rather than as a supplier of technical assistance or project monies. Monitoring is extraordinarily difficult, and the data produced are not always reliable, due to dependency on resistant field missions for whom paper compliance is a developed art. Overlaying all this is the tokenism which the all women WID staff faces in a male-dominated bureaucracy. (Author/RM)