Revisiting Canada's Civilian Women During World War II

Abstract

Much evidence in Canada’s wartime print media points to significant debate over the hopes and possible consequences of large-scale employment of women. Transformations in the daily lives of so many women during World War II raised fears about moral laxity and family instability and ultimately helped strengthen a postwar conservative reaction. Too much had transpired for women to permit things to return to the ‘‘status quo ante bellum’’, however. Progressive currents were also generated from the new and difficult wartime realities that women had confronted and surmounted, a trend that helped engender permanent changes then considered as significant breakthroughs.