There's a major flaw with how James Bond producers have cast one of their main characters.

There’s something unrealistic within the James Bond movies. No, we’re not talking about the success of the suave spy’s preferred technique to seduce women – which often relies on insults and sometimes, their husband’s murder.

It’s been revealed this week that there’s a major flaw in the way one of the main characters in the successful franchise based on Ian Fleming novels has been portrayed.

That is, gadget man ‘Q’ is actually a woman in real life.

Successive portrayals have had audiences convinced ‘Q’ could only ever be a man, with the character played by Ben Whishaw, John Cleese, Peter Burton and Desmond Llewelyn over the last 50-plus years.

However, head of the British intelligence service, Alex Younger, revealed the real-life Q was female during a speech at the Women in IT Awards, in a bid to encourage more women to join MI6.

“If any of you would like to join us, the real-life Q is looking forward to meeting you and I’m pleased to report that the real-life Q is a woman,” Mr Younger said.

Yep, the portrayal of everyone's favourite gadget genius has been missing two things... ovaries.

Continuing to talk about seeking diversity, Younger said hearing a range of views from a range of voices was important to the organisation's success.

"The more different people you have in the room, in these high-pressure circumstances in which we operate, the better the decisions," said Younger.

"So success for me is a deeper, broader range of technological skills in MI6 and more diversity, in particular, more women."

So the head of development of MI6's no-doubt state-of-the-art technology and gadgets is a woman, yet, sadly, we don't know who this brilliant woman is.

Given the nature of intelligence agencies is to keep things under wraps, we probably never will.

Let's just hope the director of the next James Bond movie also gets the message and casts a more appropriately gendered actor to play 'Q' next time.