The Construction of Secret Intelligence as a Masculine Profession

Abstract

The vast majority of intelligence history focuses on operations and executive decisionmaking rather than attending to, among other topics, analytical work or day-to-day organizational activities in the full (hierarchical) breadth of agencies. Especially in the studies on the Cold War period, one of the major implications of this research focus is that women, in so far as they are not part of top leadership or critical to operations, are excluded from analysis. This article argues that, during the Cold War period, security and intelligence services were constructed as a masculine profession. The article advances three professional standards that were constructed as masculine: a sense of responsibility, female support, and full-time availability. Empirically, this research focuses on the Dutch Security Service (in-depth interviews and archival research).