"With their feet on the ground": Women's lives and work in the Royal Canadian Air Force, 1951-1966.

Abstract

Interviews with former airwomen demonstrate that the great majority of them did not make a permanent career in the Service. The interviews also showed that women were not leaving for work reasons, but for social reasons, including marriage and children. In addition, many airwomen were engaging in behaviour that did not necessarily conform to the RCAF's ideal. Airwomen made lifestyle choices that included dating officers, consuming alcohol, engaging in extra-marital sex, and as well pursuing homosexual relationships. The RCAF attempted to control the women's behaviour through courses, lectures and recreational activities, in order to encourage traditional and "feminine" behaviour among women. Women either did not join the Air Force or left it because their choices in their lives outside of work were incompatible with the ideal that the RCAF wanted the women to portray. In conclusion, women's priorities in their lives are different from that of men, and their work patterns are often determined by their lifecycle and the choices they make in their personal lives. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)