Demobilization of Women

Canada’s contributions during the war years would have been very different if it were not for the vital roles women played on the home front. The war effort encompassed all Canadians, and women did their fair share and more, achieving and sacrificing a great deal in the cause of peace and freedom. The impressive achievements of these trailblazing women still echo today.

When the war was over and the soldiers returned from overseas many of the jobs for women disappeared. Returning service men had to be given their prewar jobs back if they wanted them and society basically expected that women should move aside for men. The women's branches of the forces were closed out. Many of the women leaving the forces took the educational packages offered them and continued their education. While many women were happy to return to the home as fulltime mothers and homemakers, others wanted or needed the independence and economic security of the workplace and found ways to expand their own horizons. 

What survived, however, were those pictures of women wearing bandanas and pants while handling riveters and blowtorches or sitting in uniform behind the wheel of a jeep. And these images would one day inspire a succeeding generation of women, those who launched in the 1960s the so-called second wave of feminism.