Women make "bloody good spies". So says a female Secret Intelligence Service officer, known as "Lisa", who has spoken out as part of an SIS recruitment campaign. She says women spy well because "We are quite good at multi-tasking. We are quite good at tapping into different emotional resources".  Busting the tradition of portraying female spies as rapacious sex addicts (Mata Hari) or over-emotional (Carrie Mathison in Homeland), Lisa is a mother who says the most distressing thing in her working day is hearing her children cry when she leaves them at nursery. Does that sound surprising? If it does, take that as a clue to the most important attribute possessed by female spies: other people's prejudice. That spying seems like a man's job is possibly the biggest reason women make good ones.  Last year Prince Charles unveiled a monument to Britain's female spies of the second world war, so perhaps they are at last gaining recognition. To celebrate – and to encourage, or perhaps discourage, applicants – here are five famous female spies.  The female CIA analyst on whom Carrie Mathison is reportedly based. "Jen" was outed – but only pseudonymously – by Navy Seal Matt Bissonnette, who took part in the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed – thanks to the intelligence she provided. According to Bissonnette's book, she spent five years researching Bin Laden's whereabouts. Little is known of her. Except Bissonnette says she is feisty – and that when she saw Bin Laden's bullet-riddled body, she wept.  "In the 1940s, most people seemed to think all female agents were beautiful and used their charm and beauty," says Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved, a biography of Granville. This was not true for all, but "Granville's charm and beauty were really important". She was fast-thinking, brave, devoted and instinctive, once biting her tongue to feign the symptoms of tuberculosis and elude the Gestapo. She also slept with lots of men: it was a jealous lover who killed her in 1952, after she had survived the war. She was awarded the George Medal.  Proof that women have long been spies and mothers. A secret agent for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), Szabó took part in two intelligence-gathering missions in 1944, in Rouen and Limoges, barely two years after her daughter was born. She was possibly motivated by the death in action of her husband, an officer in the Free French Army. One biography claims that she bought a dress for her baby in Paris when the first mission was completed. She was captured during her second mission and executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp.  Joined SOE in 1939, and supported the Resistance in France. She was Muslim and played the sitar. "She was a dreamy musician and writer," says her biographer, Shrabani Basu. "But once she was in the field she was transformed." She gave no information under torture and was executed at Dachau. Although she was awarded a George Cross, recognition of her work has been slow. Basu says she received so many letters from readers of her book asking why there was no memorial to Khan, that she started a campaign. Last year a monument to Khan was erected in London's Gordon Square.  The first female director general – and an unprecedentedly public face – of MI5. Headed up the organisation between 1992 and 1996 having risen through the ranks. "There were a number of educated women like myself [at MI5 in Curzon Street]. We ganged up against the tweed-suited, pipe-smoking brigade," she has said. Living proof of a spy afterlife – as thriller writer (intriguingly her female spy does not have children, although Rimington does), Man Booker prize judge and non-executive director.
A Secret Intelligence Service officer has claimed women are ideal for espionage. Looking back at some of the most famous spies, she has a point, says Paula Cocozza