Uninteresting and hiding many valuable layers of their amazing personalities.
Female spies of MI6
41–50 of 182 posts
Re: Female spies of MI6
#42> In the past, women have been overlooked, relegated to secretarial roles or, before the SIS era, deployed as “honeytraps” to ensnare or blackmail enemies Amusing of MI6 to claim they no longer use honeytraps.
They still are, but they were in the past, too.
I bet a bunch are male as well now.
Re: Female spies of MI6
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on this article, Bond Q came first.
Interesting. Fleming actually worked for Naval Intelligence, I always thought he took those terms from there. The 'M' allegedly came from his mom.
Presumably the M name was inspired by C, the nickname given to the mi6 chief in real life.
The C comes from that being what the first chief of mi6 used to sign, his surname was Smith-Cumming. Interestingly, he also famously said, after it was discovered that human semen works well as invisible ink, that "Every man his own stylo" - rather appropriate for a man named Cumming.
edit: wiki says that staff under him used that phrase, I'm not 100% sure he coined it or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Smith-Cumming
Re: Female spies of MI6
#44> In the past, women have been overlooked, relegated to secretarial roles or, before the SIS era, deployed as “honeytraps” to ensnare or blackmail enemies Amusing of MI6 to claim they no longer use honeytraps.
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Re: Female spies of MI6
#45Well, a women is treated equally only in the west, so per definition they can only spy as not honeytrap in the western society block. Everywhere else, its gonna be traditional.
Re: Female spies of MI6
#46There's a very good book in French on the same topic (Espionnes by Dalila Kerchouche). The author interviewed several women in the various FR services (DGSE, DGSI, etc.) in various leadership and non-leadership positions. If you can read French, you will find it very interesting. It's both a cultural trip and partial demystification of the trade.
On that note just wanted to also plug the fantastic French spy show "The Bureau" [1]. It's fiction but loved the characters and the scheming, and more high level, a glimpse into the French flavor of the CIA/MI6 verticals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bureau_(TV_series)
Gerard De La Villier is good as well. Part of his novels are salacious, but the political plots are pretty convincing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/gerard-de-villie...
I think there are 6 books available in English.
Re: Female spies of MI6
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
They still are, but they were in the past, too.
I bet a bunch are male as well now.
Scotland Yard has been doing that for decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/jan/24/scotland-yard-blo...
Re: Female spies of MI6
#48[deleted]
Re: Female spies of MI6
#49The propoganda vibes are pretty high for me.
Yeah this feels like a submarine article
Re: Female spies of MI6
#50> For the first time ever, SIS officers reveal why women often make the best spies for our times I was unable to find where this was answered in the article. It also reads like the author relied mostly on novels, movies, and such instead on a the interview. Women spies have been around just as much, if not longer - Virginia Hall, Mata Hari, Jane Whorwood, Elizabeth Van Lew, Anne Dawson, Violette Szabo. Going even fur…
> I was unable to find where this was answered in the article. For example here it makes an explicit point: "The UK’s main adversaries today — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are repressive societies with few women in positions of power. For the female spy, this weakness in the enemy is exploitable. Precisely because they are so likely to be overlooked, women have the potential to be the best spies of all." > p…
> Where does it say they were not allowed?
The first couple of paragraphs talk ad nauseum about how hard it was for women to become spies.