P.D. James wrote An Unsuitable Job for a Woman in 1972 and the novel debuted one of the first modern private detectives who was female, in the form of Cordelia Gray. P.D. James's Cordelia Gray was an intelligent and independent woman who inherits and runs her own detective agency after the death of her mentor and former agency owner Bernie Pryde. The fact that she works for herself and is an independent private detective differs Cordelia Gray from Mrs. Paschal (employed by the Metropolitan Police) and Miss Marple (an amateur detective) and from many other female detectives preceding her who “were cast in the mould of the effervescent Honey West, an oversexed woman whose sole purpose seemed to be taking off her clothes at some point during her case.” (Niebuhr 312) As the title itself suggests however there were still members of society who did see the role of detective as being unsuitable for a woman, which can be interpreted as meaning that only men should be detectives.
This change in direction concerning the female detective can be attributed to the rising influence of feminism in the late 60s and early 70s. For example, Merivale argues that P. D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is “a touchstone of early seventies feminism in its gender-infected solidarity.” (Merivale 695) However, even though the character of Cordelia Gray may have been an outcome of "early seventies feminism" the reader can see that man is still struggling to come to terms with the idea of the female detective, even though ultimately he accepts it. This can be seen in the final chapter of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. After her meeting with Dalgliesh, Cordelia Gray returns to her office to find Mr Fielding waiting for her. He comments that Cordelia is “not quite what I expected, not the usual kind of Private Eye.” (James 205) but although he finds the idea of a female detective unusual he soon overcomes his surprise and offers her the case. Also it was not just men who found the idea of a female detective unsettling in the early 1970s. After Bernie's suicide, the landlady of the Golden Pheasant (Mavis) asks Cordelia if she will be looking for a new job and states that, “you can hardly keep the Agency going on your own. It isn't a suitable job for a woman.” (James 19)
So what should we make of the female detective as seen in more modern literature? Female detectives are now seen as an integral and accepted part of the crime genre. One such female detective, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, as written by Patricia Cornwell, “won the 1999 Sherlock Award for best detective created by an American author.” (Cornwell Intro.) Although the character of Scarpetta was accepted by those involved in the field of this literary genre, within the novels she appears in, she still has battles to fight because of her gender. “Early in her career, she broke the gender barrier by replacing a male legend as Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond. At every turn, she butts up against the assumptions and prejudices of the boys of law enforcement.” (Robinson 96) This shows that even though the figure of a female detective is accepted on the surface, there are still issues arising from her gender that the female detective still confronts more than 130 years after W.S. Hayward wrote about one of the first female detectives in Mrs. Paschal.
So as illustrated, the character of the female detective as depicted in the crime novel is greatly influenced and restricted by society's attitudes towards women at the time the books were written. Mrs. Paschal, one of the first female detectives to appear in print was given the back story of being a widow so readers would find her occupation of a detective acceptable as a means for providing for her family. Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple was born out of the changing role of women in the world due to World War I. P.D. James's Cordelia Gray, one of the first professional female detectives to run her own agency, came out of the fire of the rise in feminism in the early 70's and today we still have female detectives such as Patricia Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Men grudgingly made way for these female detectives in what Maureen Reddy described as a "masculinist model" and now it seems that the female detective is here to stay and man's attitudes towards them are improving to the point where a female detective no longer surprises people although in the books at least there are yet some issues of gender still to confront.
