Written Out: The Missing Voice of Women in our War Museum
By Bibi Imre-Millei
I walked through the Canadian War Museum backwards. Before reaching the LeBretton Gallery of military technology I walked past the fuselages of WWII aircraft, painted with cartoons, slogans, victory markings, and the naked bodies of women. In Regeneration Hall, as statues cast for Vimy Ridge looked down on me, another volunteer pointed to Charles Sims’ Sacrifice on top of the staircase and remarked: “You won’t ever see another painting from the First World War with that many women.” Stepping into the main exhibition hall, his words were fresh in my mind.
As someone immersed in research on women and gender in the military on a daily basis, I was immediately struck by the nature (and at time outright lack) of women’s representation at the Canadian War Museum. The goal of reaching 25% women in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) by 2026 is lagging, and the target is not likely to be hit. The CAF’s focus is on the combat arms, where the numbers of women are lowest. Simulation training programs, advertising campaigns, and direct outreach in schools, as well as unit level measures, are the main lines of effort for recruiting women. However, none of this will matter unless the CAF works on building an identity that is consistently inclusive, and the Canadian War Museum is a great place to start.
As a public facing representation of the CAF and its history, the Canadian War Museum has a role in this recruiting effort too. Many of the visitors are young women, racialized minorities, and Indigenous youth and are also potential recruits, as the CAF is focussed on targeting Generation Z and Millennials. Underrepresentation of these groups in our war museum undermines recruiting efforts. Here I will be focussed on the representation of women specifically.
The first of the main galleries, First Peoples Warfare, had women depicted as gentle caretakers, as healers, and as providers when the family was at war. Apart from this one brief depiction, in this exhibition and other exhibitions about early Canadian settlement, women were not depicted. However, women played a pivotal role in this early history. Many European women were brought to New France and British North America in this period, sometimes against their will, in order to help populate the frontier for the specific purpose of French and later British colonization. Some women fought actively in colonial wars, while others practiced nursing or provided supplies. Indigenous women were also matriarchs and warriors, as well as healers, with deeply political roles and decision-making power in some of their societies. War is as much the history of women as it is men.
In the exhibition on WWI, women are depicted as sending their men off to war. One particular story caught my eye. In 1915, when more men were needed in the war effort, the military dropped the requirement that men needed their wife’s permission to enlist. For a fleeting moment, it would seem, women were the gatekeepers of the war. However, the rest of the depictions are simply old photographs of women, with captions such as “How many wives and children would never see their loved ones again?” This plays into the common depiction of women and children as either a single category of protected individuals or as simply on the home front; inspirational to the men who fight for them. Quotations from women discuss their sadness at seeing their husbands leave, but few speak of their own labours at home to keep families running and make munitions for the war effort. Other depictions are on propaganda posters, with women as the victims of the enemy, in need of saving by brave Canadian soldiers — who are almost exclusively depicted as men. There is a brief mention of women’s unpaid labour and the campaigns to support the families of service members, but this is less than a paragraph, and does not discuss how this dynamic led to further campaigning for women’s rights and helped lead to some victories, both during and after the war.
The display on Canadian nursing sisters is relegated to a small corner of the museum, easily passed over, which contains a single nurse’s uniform, a small paragraph about nursing sisters, and a tiny grainy video of some sisters at the front. This display is smaller than the “Caring for Animals in War” display right next to it. More importantly, it fails to highlight the leading role these women played in the advancements in battlefield medicine, one that started during the Northwest Rebellion the century before. Women in each of the service branches are treated the same way, with small glass cases scattered throughout of the exhibitions of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS or “Wrens”), the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWACS) and the RCAF women’s division.
Little changes through the galleries for the Second World War and the Cold War, with women depicted simply as damsels in distress. The critical role of women’s labour in munitions factories and on farms during the war is mentioned only briefly. The harsh conditions they endured are not mentioned at all, and their contributions to the war effort in both civilian and military roles are barely mentioned. In the Cold War exhibition in particular, while women are in the background of many photographs, there is a silence surrounding their contributions, and how they fought for their positions. Throughout the museum, there is also little to no meaningful discussion of women as victims of war or of sexual violence.
The gallery on Afghanistan and other recent deployments, including peacekeeping, is similar. Curiously, little mention is made on how women have been integrated into the Canadian military over time. This leaves the impression that even today, women only have certain roles to fill in our military, and this does not include combat. This impression is unfortunate as Canadian women have served — and died — in combat roles overseas. Worse still, it does not represent the current diversity and accomplishments of the CAF and DND: women make up 22.7% of naval officers, and Canada has one of the highest participation of women in terms of proportion of the force and deployment responsibilities.
All national museums are propaganda, as anyone who visits them regularly will have noticed. They seek to tell specific narratives from a specific viewpoint to garner sympathy for their cause and build patriotism. The reality is always more complex than what you can find out in a couple of hours in an exhibition hall. But this is precisely why women’s stories must be a part of the narrative. On the international stage, Canada projects itself as a champion of social issues and leader in women’s rights, known for spearheading the Vancouver Principles, and the Elsie Initiative (Notably, I couldn’t find mention of Elsie MacGill and her extraordinary contributions). The work of writing women back in is hard, and information is often splintered, but that is why it must be done. It is true that from a critical perspective, this type of official history will always gloss over the realities of marginalized people, the functions of colonial power, and the gendered dynamics of war. But if the CAF and DND are serious about recruiting and retaining more women, it is imperative to have more accurate representation where it matters.
Bibi is currently undertaking a Masters in Political Studies at Queen’s, with a focus on new and emerging weapons technology, gender, and warfare. At the CIDP, Bibi is the Project Coordinator for the Gender Lab, and an Assistant Editor for the CIDP’s blog: Contact Report. Follow Bibi on Twitter.
