In The Sisterhood, Mundy argues that solidarity among CIA women developed slowly but was sustained across several decades, from the WWII OSS-era, through the Cold War and into the post-9/11 anti-terrorism decades. The book traces how, although early women often worked alone and viewed one another as rivals, later generations began to mentor each other quietly, which helped female officers navigate a system that favored men. These relationships eventually grew into formal collective action. By following these cultural shifts, Mundy shows how the CIA’s women increasingly moved toward a shared strategy that challenged the institution’s sexist practices and strove to level the playing field. Thematically, Mundy frames this female network as an equalizing response to the regressive “old boys’ club” of the previous theme. 

Mundy establishes how, during the agency’s early years, the male hierarchy deliberately pushed women to compete, a “divide-and-rule” strategy which “set women against one another” (18). This is exemplified by Eloise Page, who became the first female station chief in 1978. Page built her career by aligning herself with powerful men, and gained a reputation for being “most unhelpful to her younger female colleagues” (73). Although this behavior makes Page an ambiguous member of Mundy’s “sisterhood,” the book argues that Page’s self-protection reflected a culture that encouraged women in leadership to guard their positions defensively. Page becomes a form of anti-role model in the narrative: On the one hand, a trailblazing female precedent, but also a negative example of how crucial proactive female leadership is in advancing junior women.

As The Sisterhood traces the impacts of women through the generations, it identifies the 1970s and 1980s as times of step-change, as a new group of female officers started to actively identify with and help one another. Lisa Harper stands at the center of this shift, as the book shows her mentoring Heidi August for training at the Farm during the 1980s. Harper is explicitly described as “the kind of woman who would assist another woman,” (101) giving August informal details on what training demanded and how the system favored men, despite the disapproval of Harper’s CIA husband, who tries to “snatch the phone away” (102). This exchange marks a turn away from the competition of earlier years, showing how female-to-female support helped to combat the barriers to entry faced by women. Within the context of the book’s argumentative trajectory, in which August’s later position becomes central to America’s post-9/11 counterterrorism capability, Harper’s generosity here is framed as having a lasting and meaningful benefit on the CIA as well as August personally. 

The book’s discussion of individual female relationships set the stage for its treatment of subsequent organized action for equality within the workplace, framing this as a gradual progression which gained momentum. Mundy details the success of the Category B class-action lawsuit in the 1990s, which networked hundreds of women to collectively challenge gender discrimination inside the agency, an action described as “the moment the women of the clandestine service truly came together” (165). This lawsuit turned individual, siloed frustrations into a shared demand for structural change. By connecting the solitary stance of Eloise Page with the collective action of the Category B plaintiffs, Mundy traces how CIA women built a sisterhood that increasingly confronted the biases embedded in the institution. Although The Sisterhood does not present these issues as solved, its presentation of a continuing female support network within the CIA forms part of its positive and motivational message for female empowerment.