The Sisterhood explores the extent to which the CIA’s early culture reflected the restrictive gender roles of mid-20th-century America. In an era when women’s roles were primarily defined by domesticity, professional ambition was stigmatized, and career paths were narrowed to supportive roles. Although significant numbers of women had entered the labor market during WWII, this dropped from 37% in 1945 to 32% in 1950, largely a result of growing post-war social conservatism and the prioritization of returning veterans in the work force (NBER. “Women and post-WWII wages.” 2002). Although the original aims of the US intelligence services had centered around “the notion that a centralized spy service should be civilian—not military—and draw from a wide swath of skills and people” (7), much of this diversity was lost when the CIA was created in 1947. The new mandate reflected wider social norms which viewed a new, professionalized agency as an elite, male clique, fostering a masculine culture dominated by old-boy networks of station chiefs and operations “barons.” 

The Sisterhood documents how sexual discrimination was codified within the agency’s structure and practices at the CIA, where men held active and leadership positions while women were channeled into support roles. Women employees were hired as “girls,” subjected to sexualized workplace dynamics, and funneled into clerical or reports tracks. Mundy argues that sexism was even more prevalent in the CIA than in society at large, making the organization a hostile environment for women: “There was one particular deputy director of operations who wanted to see our legs… When you went to brief him, you had to wear a skirt” (79-80). Formal barriers, such as women forced to resign upon marriage, and informal ones, like damaging “hall-file” reputations, policed female advancement.  

Social attitudes to female labor can also be demonstrated by their comparative valuation in the market. In 1950-1980, the gender pay gap in the US was around 60%, rising to around 75% by 2000 (Qualtrics. A timeline of the gender pay gap in the United States. 2024). Mundy presents this systemic sexism as a form of hypocrisy, as the agency remained dependent on women’s underpaid and undervalued labor, such as the unpaid expertise of former officers working “housewife cover.” The Sisterhood explores the ways in which the CIA recognized these sexist social attitudes, deliberately—and often cynically—using them for its own purposes.