Everyday Narratives from Women in the Canadian Armed Forces: Challenges and Opportunities

As debates over diversity and inclusion intensify, understanding women’s everyday experiences in the military becomes increasingly important. Likewise, against a political backdrop of heightened insecurity, as well as recruitment challenges, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are committed to organizational culture change, part of which entails ensuring that women and other minorities feel welcome and valued. This article draws on 40 qualitative interviews with CAF servicewomen and Veterans representing different tanks, occupations, and service branches, to understand how they navigate belonging, exclusion, and identity in an institution historically steeped in masculine ideals of soldiering. The article begins with a historical overview of women’s integration in the CAF, followed by a review of literature on women’s representation in militaries and other male-dominated workplaces. Research findings are presented under six themes: memories of women’s integration; gendered stereotypes and fitting in; horizontal hostility, sisterhood and reverse sexism; gender and perceptions of privilege and discomfort; diverse identities; and work–life conflict, mothering, and relationships. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for future research, policy, and practice, including how paying attention to women’s everyday experiences helps illuminate why recruitment and retention remain difficult and why culture change continues to be uneven, suggesting that gender continues to shape military life in numerous ways.