The NFB is committed to respecting your privacy

We use cookies to ensure that our site works efficiently, as well as for advertising purposes.

If you do not wish to have your information used in this way, you can modify your browser settings before continuing your visit.

Learn more
Skip to content Accessibility
Subjects (65)
National Security and Defence (33)

Women in the Armed Forces (5)

  • Airwomen
    Airwomen
    Ian MacNeill 1956 17 min
    A Fighter Control Operator must know her radar screen as well as she knows her own face. Elaine Harrington learns to do exactly that as she comes successfully through the rugged preliminary training to which the Royal Canadian Air Force subjects its recruits, both male and female. Elaine's dream is realized with a posting to Canada's NATO force in Germany.
  • Eye Witness No. 30
    Eye Witness No. 30
    1951 10 min
    These vignettes from 1951 covered various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are British Columbia's Cariboo Trail, once the scene of a great gold rush and which still pays off for the placer miner and occasional prospector; Canada's new state residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, a redesigned old stone mansion destined to become Canada's No. 10 Downing Street; a unique ceremony in remote Chesterfield Inlet as the first Inuit girl in history receives the veil of the Grey Nuns; Great Lakes conservationists outsmart the eel-like bloodsucker that preys on fish; and the new blue model uniforms designed for the Women's Division of the Air Force.

    Please note that this is an archival film that makes use of the word “Eskimo,” an outdated and offensive term. While the origin of the word is a matter of some contention, it is no longer used in Canada. The term was formally rejected by the Inuit Circumpolar Council in 1980 and has subsequently not been in use at the NFB for decades. This film is therefore a time-capsule of a bygone era, presented in its original version. The NFB apologizes for the offence caused.
  • Frontiers to Guard
    Frontiers to Guard
    Ian MacNeill 1956 17 min
    A Fighter Control Operator must know her radar screen as well as she knows her own face. Elaine Harrington learns to do exactly that as she comes successfully through the rugged preliminary training to which the Royal Canadian Air Force subjects its recruits, both male and female. Elaine's dream is realized with a posting to Canada's NATO force in Germany.
  • How They Saw Us: Proudly She Marches
    How They Saw Us: Proudly She Marches
    Ann Pearson 1977 18 min
    A recruitment film made in 1943. Its words offer women the excitement and challenge of new kinds of work in the armed services. The visual message, however, suggests that this work is merely temporary and possibly even unnatural for women.
  • How They Saw Us: Wings on Her Shoulder
    How They Saw Us: Wings on Her Shoulder
    Ann Pearson 1977 11 min
    This is a 1943 recruitment film. Although it specifically promises women jobs in post-war aviation, its primary message is that women fulfill support positions "so that men might fly."

Explore