Canadian Forces Artist Program
"a man can be seen as stoic and forceful and a woman is a bitch. I was told early in my career that i had three choices: to be a slut, bitch or dyke." -anonymous stakeholder
From "Report of the Independent External Comprehensive Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces,” by The Honourable Louise Arbour, C.C., G.O.Q., May 20, 2022.
From 2019-present, I began researching the work of the first female Canadian war artist, Molly Lamb Bobak, focusing on her wartime dairy. I then began to develop a war dairy in the form of a sketchbook which combines images and text from my experiences with the CFAP along with research on the treatment and status of women in the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
In the sketchbook text, I often cite the 2022 “Independent External Comprehensive Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces”, authored by Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court Justice and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In the Review, she describes the Canadian military as adopting “the glorification of masculinity as the only acceptable operational standard for CAF members” (14). She continues, "and the continued unwillingness to let women in particular, as well as members of the LGBTQ2+ community, visible minorities and equity-seeking groups occupy their proper place in the military."
The sketchbook is displayed open to this page in the Group 9 exhibition at the Canadian War Museum. The image was observed during an outreach day with the CAF in Estonia. The quote below the image is from Page 34 of the Independent External Review from an anonymous stakeholder.