It is a man’s world — no more. While men still dominate the world of intelligence-gathering — scholars of the history of espionage estimate that a whopping 80% of those employed by spy agencies around the globe are male — things might finally be changing. Britain has, for the first time, appointed a woman to head its premier secret service agency, the MI6. Blaise Metreweli’s rise to the top post comes three decades after Judi Dench blazed a trail on the screen by heading, albeit in fiction, the same spy agency in the James Bond films, quietly planting the image of a woman at the helm of the world’s most famous spy agency in the public imagination. Literary and cinematic fiction, of course, has always had room for formidable female spies. Be it Hera in ancient Greek myths, Charlie by John le Carré or Black Widow from the Avengers, women spies have mesmerised audiences with their intellect, courage, and cunning even though most of their real-life counterparts languished in obscurity, institutional misogyny and the secrecy that is part of their profession being the principal causes.
But there is an interesting tension — contradiction — when it comes to women’s abundance as spies in fiction and their invisibility in this profession in real life. This is because history bears evidence that women have always been adept at espionage. From the legendary spy, Virginia Hall — nicknamed ‘Hitler’s limping nightmare’ — to the unnamed Central Intelligence Agency operative who helped locate Osama bin Laden, women have played crucial roles in intelligence-gathering. There was also the enchanting Mata Hari, the Dutch dancer executed for espionage in World War I. India, too, has had its own share of ladies who have covertly slipped past the glass ceiling: Sohra Bai, during the revolt of 1857, Saraswathi Rajamani, who was revered by Subhas Chandra Bose, Noor Inayat Khan, Tipu Sultan’s descendant and the first female wireless operator sent to the Nazi-occupied territory of France, and Mitali Madhumita, who penetrated deep into enemy territory during the Kargil war, are but a few examples. In fact, research by the London School of Economics confirms that women are better at surveillance. Their potential is explained by the fact that they are most likely to be underestimated as spies. Could their excellence explain the roots of women’s marginalisation in institutional espionage? The — male? — tweaking of perception played a role in this. Consider the fact that a study at Washington University in St. Louis revealed that Mata Hari has, unfortunately, come to embody the archetype of the female spy as a seductress. So much so that in 2004, leaked internal documents from MI5 — Britain’s domestic security agency — revealed official correspondence on women spies needing to be neither “oversexed” nor “undersexed” to be effective.
The rules of the game though are changing. As espionage shifts from cloak-and-dagger theatrics to psychological warfare, murky digital dealings, and global influence operations, the traits of the ideal spy are being redefined. A former CIA chief described adaptability, emotional intelligence, cultural fluency, and strategic patience — qualities that lie outside traditional conceptions of the masculine – as the ideal traits of the modern spy. In today’s intelligence wars, the most dangerous person in the room is no longer the tuxedoed man sipping martinis. It may well be the woman who observes without being seen and leads without declaring it.