About Girl SpY

So what exactly is “intelligence” ?

Ask most people and you will immediately receive the deer-in-the-headlights look. I know I have. Many other people far smarter than this Agent write more thoroughly and concisely about this topic so I’m sure you won’t mind at all when I direct you their way in the blogroll.

But for the sake of this blog, I will refer to the definition I have been taught: “Intelligence is a process, using primarily unstructured information from all sources and focused externally, that is designed to reduce the level of uncertainty for a decision maker.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but let’s talk instead about something more fun: let’s talk about “doing the deed”. The deed of Intelligence-related activities. Activities in Intelligence are far reaching. The media would have you believe that every spy is an assassin with a closet full of funky costumes, a rack of assassination tools, and the punching bag in the corner with which to practice the perfect round-house kick. Clearly, this is not the case. Intelligence activities include (in no particular order) writing (a lot of writing), researching (even more of that), interpreting (getting tired yet?), analyzing, assessing, estimating, inventing, and managing, yes, managing, just to name a few. And every activity is an important piece to the total package.

So, yeah, the media misrepresents the trade. Because, really, who wants to see a movie or TV show about a skirt working on a cryptogram? The covert-operative is always more interesting to some and because the male-spy was the dominant theme for so long, the idea of women operatives is considered highly novel-even in this age. In the end, what we get is the media sexing up the ladies and sending them off to play out whatever latent, pathological, twisted fantasy some writer had about their 3rd grade gym teacher.

But what I mean to express here is this: we’ll look at the sexed-up, killer fembots, but we’ll also look at the women, both fictional and real. While fictional characters often land way off the mark, I’m often surprised at how often there is at least some bit of intelligence advice that can be relayed by these dames. More importantly though, we’ll look at the real skirts doing the real deeds. They come from where you least expect it and while their activities sometimes seem like a yawn, the consequences and reverberations those activities have had are utterly astounding.

If nothing else, I hope you at least be slightly entertained and will look at the ladies in the trade in a whole new light. I know I do.

5 Comments

  1. Nice niche, but dull the politically correct references. They cheapen the message and education you’re providing. NOBODY needs a federal holiday.

    The ladies have been a secret weapon. It worked, because they were mistakenly underestimated by enemies, adversaries, allies, and even our own government.

    Be positive always. Ceremony now only focuses the future lens on any and all mistakes uncovered.

  2. Politically correct? Or did you mean politically incorrect? If you’re referring to dames, skirts, broads and the like, you either get used to it or move on to another blog. My personally belief is that labels only hold the power we allow them to possess, so I refuse to accept those terms as derogatory.

  3. I’ve been misunderstood Sweetie. I’m with you.

    With the monikers you list, I agree. Your blog subject, I like.
    Any brain we can get into the community is welcome – and has been. How it’s packaged doesn’t matter to mature supervisors and leaders.

    Feminism has been hijacked by extremists and kooks.
    As a cog in the bureaucratic machine, everyone must acclimate to faked ‘work’ names, scrubbed reports, redacted records and disguised sources. The sex of the personnel/employee producing the statistics, on the scale of overall importance, is exactly nil.

    Drawing attention to the historical significance of female operatives and sources is admirable. It’s a high wire act though. I consider this blog educational so far.

  4. Apologies!

    Welcome to the blog!!

  5. Thank you for linking to NewRisks. I support your enterprise. NewRisks will overtly change its thematic focus from intelligence to literary analysis in the months to come: nothing short of ‘intelligence by other means’. Girl Spy, do not be discouraged by gender-biased talk. Our power is subtle. Best wishes.


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