The Ones We Let Down: Toxic Leadership Culture and Gender Integration in the Canadian Forces explores the ten years following the decision of the 1989 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal directing the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to remove all restrictions barring women from specific employment in the CAF, except for submarine service and Catholic chaplains. This was a tumultuous era for the CAF: the end of the Cold War, coupled with an increased operational tempo, concurrent with a significant budget reduction in funding for equipment, resulting in a forced reduction in the size of the military. This was a less than ideal backdrop for the substantial change required to integrate women into the operational units of the CAF. Charlotte Duval-Lantoine examines how this fundamental change to the organisation was handled, or mishandled, by the leadership of this era and the ramifications of actions taken.
While acknowledging scholarship which has investigated the impact of a hyper-masculine and heteronormative culture to deter gender integration and a normalised place for women in all aspects of defence (28-31), Duval-Lantoine places the failure of integration squarely on the shoulders of the senior leadership of the CAF. She submits that the root cause of failed gender integration was an “absence of genuine and credible leadership buy-in for gender integration between 1989 and 1999”(63). A failure of leadership to support gender integration is compared with other examples of senior leaders’ ineptitude in delivering institutional-level policy, infused with passive resistance to civilian oversight.
Gender integration was an issue consistently relegated to the “back burner”, being overtaken by issues arising from the Somalia Affair, the Force Reduction Plan (FRP), budget reductions, etc. Duval-Lantoine argues that overcoming the barriers to supporting gender integration was never a top priority for senior leadership and that apathy percolated to other ranks. Despite the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal’s acknowledgement in 1999 of a strong commitment by CAF leadership to continue the process of gender integration past the ten-year deadline, Duval-Lantoine pinpoints a lack of organised change in the “continuously disrupted timeline, characterised by initiatives that died in their conception, and a lack of a “conceptual model” as well as an “uncoordinated nature of the implementation structure” (48). In the initial absence of clearly stated and measurable goals, the end state could therefore be ignored or never met. However, when such goals and plans were written, they were ignored (44-45).
Another part of this failure lies in the inability to envision what gender integration or gender equity might look like in a military setting. There was no approved qualitative or quantitative sense of what, exactly, gender integration would or could mean for the CAF and for individual serving members. The add-women-and-stir movement was alive and well and thought to be acceptable. The leadership of the CAF created OP MINERVA in 1994, a nine-point plan to integrate women into the Canadian Forces. The very name OP MINERVA is of interest: Minerva was worshipped by the Romans as the goddess of wisdom, inspiration, and military success, having emerged fully formed with a spear in hand from the forehead of her father, Jupiter. She, however, was invoked as a source of defensive strategy and not offensive, which was the role of the war god Mars. Whether purposefully done or not, this is a poignant symbol that women in defence were to adhere to “traditional” gendered roles in this initiative.
Other books have covered this issue and era from a personal perspective vice a policy or leadership perspective. Sandra Perron’s Outstanding in the Field: A Memoir by Canada’s First Female Infantry Officer (2017) captures the ramifications of this leadership failure in a much more personal and visceral way. The connection between Duval-Lantoine’s analysis of senior leader apathy coupled with policy blunders and Perron’s experiences as a woman in an infantry battalion is tangible. It supports a complete picture of the very real consequences of such leadership failures. As Duval-Lantoine asserts in her book, the military knew this was not an issue of capability nor competence but instead was an issue of leadership.
The question that must be asked is, does the Canadian Armed Forces’ current leadership have a clearer understanding of why these change initiatives failed? Is it as simple as the organisation has not yet overcome the pervasive, systemic, and fundamental hyper-masculinised military culture? How can leaders, especially men, be engaged as champions to advance women’s meaningful participation and leadership in the defence sector? A fulsome discussion of the mechanisms of gender mainstreaming is beyond the scope of this book, but Duval-Lantoine recognizes that some positive movement has occurred in these last few tumultuous years. Both a strategy and a plan for integration are monitored by senior leadership. There is “a clear and institutionalised apparatus of implementation,” and the “support of an external monitoring body” exists and is being taken seriously by senior leadership (156).
Education and mentorship, clear communication of purpose and intent, patience, persistence, and persuasion all assist in cultural change. Not only should the inclusion and participation of women in defence and security be sought, but we should also question and consider traditional gender expectations which have an adverse or limiting effect on institutional change, and how multiple paths to a secure and safe environment are conceptualised and implemented.
In addition to the failures of integration initiatives, successes could have been explored more deeply in the volume to understand the challenges of integration and the role of subcultures in culture change. For example, the naval reserve force has had a more successful experience with integration from the start. Exploring this success may have provided good lessons to take on board for future change.
Anyone engaged in implementing the Women, Peace, and Security agenda worldwide will find this publication instructive on how to set conditions to avoid similar culture change failures within the security and defence environments. “Recommendations can only be impactful when the leadership follows them”(50).
Duval-Lantoine’s book serves to fix a specific historical period in light of what followed and what continues into our present. This accessible, readable book should be required for all who seek to make change within a respectful, diverse, and fully effective military. The book provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on what has occurred and for leaders at all levels to consider useful lessons as to why change initiatives fail and why people are let down. With the recent release of the Arbour Report*, the renewed Canadian Armed Forces doctrinal foundation of Trusted to Serve: The CAF Ethos, and other analyses of barriers for women, Duval-Lantoine has much material for a sequel to this volume.
*The Arbour report refers to “The Independent External Comprehensive Review on Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment” by Former Supreme Court Justice Madame Louise Arbour and published in June 2022.
About the authors
Shannon Lewis-Simpson is Assistant Professor, Department of Defence Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, and has served 30 years as a reserve Naval Warfare Officer.
Anne Reiffenstein served 29 years in the Canadian Army before retiring in 2018. She is a Doctoral Student at Royal Roads University.