India, Feb. 22 -- Every couple of years, there are renewed calls for a gender-swapped version of James Bond. And while gender-swapped movies or characters can work in some contexts, demanding a female Bond, when we already have several iconic female spies in film and television, can feel unfair, both to those characters and to the women who have played them.

A spy, in many ways, is a shadow. What we see on screen is a persona assumed for a particular mission or task. Spies are skilled at blending in and avoiding attention. In fact, some of the best female spies use their identity as women to their advantage, because people often stereotype women as harmless or innocent. So when they lean into such assumptions, they are able to outmanoeuv...