"Why Do Women Do Nothing to End the War?": Canadian Feminist-Pacifists and the Great War

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation in Toronto.

Roberts’s paper is a first step in the investigation into the Canadian feminist-pacifist movement during World War I. Profiles of four leaders of the movement show that maternalism was the key-note. These women felt that natural mothering instincts could help save the world from destruction.

While there is much evidence of networking among pacifist women during this period, Roberts urges more research to determine whether Canada actually has a feminist-pacifist tradition. While Gertrude Richardson may have equated socialism, pacifism, feminism, and Christianity, others did not. The traditional stereotype of the knitter and letter-writer sitting home during the War was not universal, Roberts shows, but there is as yet no indication of the strength of either the pro-Empire or the pacifist side.

In addition to Richardson, the paper profiles Laura Hughes of Toronto, Frances Marion Beynon of Manitoba, and Violet McNaughton of Saskatchewan. The profiles are perforce brief; in fact, the entire paper serves only to whet the reader’s appetite for more research on this subject.