Catch her if you can
Her job is sometimes jokingly called 'the world's second oldest profession'. And indeed, the female spy has been around since ancient times, long before Mata Hari and her bejeweled bra caused a stir in the early 20th century.
As researchers have found out the hard way: the ladies of espionage are very hard to 'catch'. For two reasons: the secretive nature of their job (duh!) but also the fact that women have systematically been erased from history. So, if we want to learn about the history of female espionage, we have to read in between the lines. In other words, we have to think like a spy.
What do we know about Cleopatra, for example? Behind the Drama Queen and donkey-milk bathing beauty was actually a skilled diplomat and a shrewd strategist. Understanding the importance of gathering secret intel, the Egyptian pharaoh had her own spy ring planted deep within Roman politics. Seen in that light, 'delivering' herself to Caesar in a rolled-up carpet could have been more strategic than romantic. In Greece, the ancient Amazons also set the stage for women in military intelligence. Whether real or mythological - likely a combination of both - these fierce warrior women have been described as being masterful at infiltrating enemy camps. Sounds a lot like espionage, right? We do find one 'official' mention of female spies by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He called them otakoustai, or 'listening ears', pointing out an advantage that women still seem to have: men, assuming we're harmless, are easily swayed to spill the beans.
Fast forward to Queen Elizabeth's Golden Age, and we 'spy' a different type of undercover agent: the clever female entrepreneur, trading secrets for cash. These 17th-century she-intelligencers, as literary historian Nadine Akkerman describes in her book Invisible Agents, would sell information to the highest bidder, regardless of their politics or religion. Their specialty: secret messages, created using innovative techniques, from invisible ink made with artichokes to notes hidden in raw eggs. Luckily, when caught, these resourceful women would often be released shorty afterwards, under the assumption they had been forced to spy by a man. As Nadine explained to us: "At the time, people believed that women literally didn't have the brains to engage in political activities."
Well, politics was exactly what drove the majority of the formidable female spies during World War I and II. Fascist-fighting femmes fatales Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker were a new breed of secret agents: instead of hiding in the shadows, they used their fame as a cover. Marlene, for example, volunteered to collect intel for the American government while visiting European warzones to sing for 'her boys' (the Allied soldiers). And then there was Churchill's favorite secret agent, known to wear a commando knife strapped to her thigh: superspy Christine Granville. She would be the inspiration for Vesper Lynd, the double spy who broke James Bond's heart in 'Casino Royale', launching an entire generation of fictional female spies.
In recent years, whether in spy fiction or classified government files, from Killing Eve's badass M15 agent Eve Polastri to real-life Russian spy Anna Chapman, female spies have been slipping past gender limitations just like they once slipped past enemy lines. The secret is out: women have the potential to be the best spies of all, not just because they are so likely to be overlooked, but because of their intelligence, resourcefulness and wit. And let's not forget the kind of qualities that can best be labelled as 'feminine'. As a serving female MI6 officer pointed out in a recent interview, women make "bloody good spies", because we are highly adept at multi-tasking and understanding emotions. Just ask Cleopatra....
