If Women Make The Best Spies, Will We Ever See A Female Bond?
A leading female intelligence officer has gone on record as saying women make "bloody good spies" because of their ability to understand emotions and multi-task. During an interview with the Times, an anonymous intelligence officer going by the name of Lisa suggested that being a mother is an advantage too, because it allows women to connect with a wide variety of people, from terrorists to political leaders.
"I am less of a threat than a single female," said Lisa, who is married with young children, "They [the terrorists] have mothers, sisters, daughters."
Lisa spoke with the British newspaper about her job as part of an active recruitment campaign that is taking place in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) - better known as MI6.
She said: "It is awesome, completely unique. I have successfully countered proliferations, I have made the world a safer place through some of the operations I have done and the agents I have run.
"It is always interesting. There is massive diversity. You can be covering completely different geographical areas during a career. There is a string moral reward to it."
Describing the qualities required of a spy, Lisa said that speaking a foreign language is a strong plus, as well as a sense of entrepreneurship when it comes to problem solving.
"The beauty of the work is finding the slickest route. to get from A to B without getting caught," she said.
Lisa also criticised the portrayal of female spies in the media, particularly the part of Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) in Homeland, who suffers from a personality disorder. Saga (Sofia Helin) in The Bridge eschews the need for a serious relationship, instead picking up men in bars for casual sex. Popular opinion is that she suffers from Asperger's syndrome.
"I think they [women] are bloody good spies," Lisa said.
"We are quite good at multi-tasking. We are quite good at tapping into different emotional resources. You can get into a lot of places. But all of those skills are shared by many of my male colleagues."
It begs the question - will we ever seen a female James Bond?
The actress Rebecca Hall - the partner of Skyfall director Sam Mendes - told the Metro that she highly doubts it
"I don't think there ever would be a female Bond because that character is tied to an intensely male outlook on the world from a pre-feminist era," Hall said.
"I think it is conceivable there would be characters that are on par with that but there is still a mistrust outside the indie sector that people are interested in seeing women carrying films, which is frankly an archaic view."