What Are The Effects Of Ww2 On Canadian Women

The effects of World War II were felt beyond the sphere of international relations and global politics. On a national level, Canadian women played an especially important part in society and were thus extremely affected by the war and its aftermath. Firstly, women’s organizations were incredibly involved in Canadian wartime efforts and used their influence to continue their efforts to reform social conditions and public policy. In addition, the wartime labour force opportunities ultimately expanded the activities of Canadian women and produced positive, long-term results with respect to their ability to complete paid work. Furthermore, the Nursing Sisters – being the only women serving in the Canadian armed forces at the beginning of the war

While the war waged on, women's organizations continued to provide a vital arena in which women of different classes, ethnicities, and religions could meet, learn, and act. Separate from the issue of the war, women’s organizations achieved many general successes, such as laying the groundwork that would a decade later produce women’s eligibility for jury service in Ontario and negotiating the passage of “equal pay for equal work” legislation on both a provincial and federal level. These achievements were in no way related to the global conflict at hand, however, their success demonstrates the commitment and effort that Canadian women continued to put into feminist causes even though there was a war happening around them. In addition to feminist causes, women’s organizations were also active in Canadian wartime efforts. For example, in rural areas, the Women’s Institute promoted women’s war services and was especially active in mobilizing women for agricultural production. As a result of the Women’s Institute’s involvement, there were nearly

Across the nation, women supplemented the declining male agricultural workforce as men signed up for military service or gravitated to more attractive industrial work, subsequently providing women with new opportunities for personal growth and accomplishment. In addition, African-Canadian women found that the racial barriers to factory work were lowered for the first time, and other visible minority women who had previously found it particularly difficult to secure waged employment now found job opportunities in industry and to a limited extent in clerical and retail settings. Some white women gained training in skilled occupations where they replaced male workers, and women were furthermore allowed to join the women’s divisions of the armed forces. The number of women in the Canadian labor force ultimately increased from 666,000 in 1939 to 1,200,000 in 1944—thus demonstrating the emancipating effects of war with regard to female employment. The integration of more women into the workforce was a long-term result, with an increase in married women who were working from 10 percent in the 1930s to more than 30 percent in the 1950s. Women’s success in the labour force ultimately showed that the ideal of a family in which the mother stayed at home to look after the children while