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Kristen Brown

Professor Burds
HONR 3310
24 June 2014
Stereotyped Attitudes toward Female Cold War Spies
Kathryn Olmsteds article Blond Queens, Red Spiders, and Neurotic Old
Maids: Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War analyzes the media
portrayal of and societal response to female Cold War spies in the United States.
Instead of publicizing the actual contributions of female spies and communists
like Elizabeth Bentley, Priscilla Hiss, Ethel Rosenberg, and Judith Coplon, the
media contorted facts to make them out to be, as the title suggests, either blond
queens, red spiders, or neurotic old maids. When the true identities of these
women became known, the public was often disappointed that their famous
hyped-up blond queens were hardly the seductresses they had been
popularized as. Rather, their relative normalcy in appearance and character was
shocking because it meant these communist spies were not so different after all;
this may have upset people because they wanted to blame pro-communist
espionage on the womens extreme personalities instead of accepting that
anybody, really, could be a spy. Olmstead argues that the stereotyped and largely
untrue depictions of female spies in this era stemmed from fear of post-World

War II changing gender relations, which itself was tied to the fear of the spread of
the communist ideology that promoted greater gender equality.
Elizabeth Bentley played a significant role for the Soviet Unions
intelligence efforts within the United States, and then later for American
counterintelligence. Bentley, a communist, became a major spy in her own right
when she served as a case officer for 30 American agents who gave her
information and documents to pass on to Soviet supervisors. 1 She defected to the
United States in 1945 and in doing so provided American officials with over 80
names of other spies.2 Her defection effectively shut down Soviet espionage in
North America for several years.3 Bentley was an undeniably important figure in
her field, yet when her story hit the stands in 1948, all anyone could talk about
was her supposed physical appearance and sexual tendencies. 4 The newspapers
wrote of Bentley as a young, glamorous, single blond, but without access to
concrete evidence, they fumbled into the conclusion that Bentley was either a) a

1 Kathryn S. Olmsted, "Blond Queens, Red Spiders, and Neurotic Old Maids:
Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War," Intelligence and National
Security Volume 19, Number 1 (Spring 2004): 82.
2 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 82.
3 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 82.
4 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 78.
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sex-starved, man-eating temptress; or b) a sexually-repressed, man-hating


spinster.5
Interestingly, political affiliation impacted which identity Bentleys audience chose
to attribute to her. The conservative side of the media spectrum picked option a)
and played Bentley up to be a Mata Hari figure or femme fatale. This, aside from
sensationalizing the public for profit, fit nicely into their anti-communist agenda in
that they could paint communist women like Bentley as unnatural, dangerous, led
astray from their morals, and, of course, on a crusade against men. 6 The New
York Journal-American, dedicated to exposing the Red Menace, wrote that
communists often used sexually alluring mysterious blondes like Bentley as
agents to lure secrets out of weak New Dealers. 7
On the other side, liberals lambasted the non-blonde, frumpy Bentley as a
neurotic spinster who, if she had lied about her appearance, could have easily
done the same about her supposed work as a spy.8 In reality, Bentley had not lied
about her appearance; her conservative supporters in the media had done so in
their femme fatale characterization of her to push anti-communist ideas.
Regardless, liberals tried to discredit Bentley as a crazed liar and downplayed the
5 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 82.
6 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 83.
7 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 83, n.22 and 23.
8 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 83.
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legitimate impact she had actually made for both sides of the Cold War. 9 In effect,
both conservative and liberals alike degraded the image and legacy of Bentley by
reducing her to a creature whose actions revolved around sex. They both also
portrayed her as hating men in some way, which conveniently turned people
against her and against the idea of a successful female agent who did not hate or
manipulate men. Neither side could accept the possibility that Bentley, who did
not exchange sex for secrets, was, exactly like her male counterparts, simply just
a communist case agent passing information to the Soviet Union.
The third female spy stereotype popularized in this period was that of the
domineering communist wife who manipulated her husband into committing antiAmerican espionage. In the notorious case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who
were tried and executed for atomic espionage in 1953, media outlets honed in on
Ethel who, like her husband, was a devout communist.10 They took issue with the
fact that Ethel (exactly like Julius) maintained an unmoving, calm expression
during the conviction; as a woman, Ethel was supposed to be outwardly
emotional and upset, especially because of her children feelings she did
actually express in private but would not indulge her opponents by letting them

9 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 83.


10 Olmsted, Blond Queens, 88.
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see.11 Although she acted in the same manner as her husband, newspapers like
the World Telegram and Sun and the Journal-American decided that Ethel was
the more unnatural and evil of the two, referencing a saying in the animal
kingdom that the female is the deadlier of the species. 12 They proposed that
Ethel, three years older than her husband and certainly more dedicated to the
communist cause, was the one in charge who had motivated Julius to conspire
against the United States.13 Amazingly, they believed that the extra shocks
required to kill Ethel compared to just the one needed for Julius further
proved that she was the stronger partner in crime, the true villain.
Newspapers also made a point of noting that she was deceptively lumpish,
once again hearkening back to the stereotype of sexually appealing female
spies.14
The unfortunate truth that persists even today in espionage (and other
professional areas) is that female spies are viewed as females first and as spies
second. As in the case of Elizabeth Bentley, their accomplishments as spies or
defectors are ignored and instead the media tends to focus on irrelevant
information like their physical appearance or suspected sexual motives.
11
12
13
14

Olmsted, Blond Queens, 88.


Olmsted, Blond Queens, 88, n. 55.
Olmsted, Blond Queens, 88.
Olmsted, Blond Queens, 88.
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Furthermore, the medias will to force stereotypes on the female spies mentioned
in this article is indomitable. The work of any woman spy or accomplice, in the
case of Ethel Rosenberg, must be chalked up to extreme personalities or
ideology, and the women of interest must be characterized as blond queens,
neurotic spinsters, or red spiders manipulating their husbands into treachery. By
reducing women to these tired roles, the media comforts itself and its audience
by shying away from the very true notion that boring, fairly regular women can
commit espionage. This was especially true during the early Cold War era when
fears about changing gender roles were mounting.

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