Killers of a Certain Age

Raybourn is particularly attentive to gender roles and stereotypes, particularly as they shape cisgender women’s professional and personal lives. While Billie and her friends routinely confront sexism, ageism, and misogyny, they also use gender stereotypes to their advantage. Constance tells Billie that “sex is a weapon” (89), and she encourages its use. On her first mission, Billie experiences sexual harassment not only from the man she is there to kill, but also from her co-workers who do not see her as an equal. On this mission, her role as a stewardess is to disarm the Bulgarian delegation, which sees her and the others as a kind of decoration. The bodyguard assumes the new pilots are the potential threats, not the four women who ultimately carry out the assassination. The group’s later assassination of a corrupt Catholic bishop depends on them being dressed as nuns, once again relying on the association of femininity with powerlessness.

Much of Billie’s character arc and growth comes from moments when she explicitly confronts misogyny and, later, ageism. In her early career, she made an enemy of Vance when she killed to save his life, depriving of him of the prestige of eliminating a former Nazi.