Female Imperialism and National Identity: Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire - Reviews - Book Review

Contemporary Review, July, 2003

Female Imperialism and National Identity: Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire. Katie Pickles. Manchester University Press. [pounds sterling]45.00. 209 pages. ISBN 07 190-6390-6. Canada's Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire was the largest women's patriotic group in the Empire. It was founded during the Boer War (1899-1902) and developed into a formidable body which not only sought to retain and strengthen Canada's ties with the Mother Country but to enhance Canada's own self-identity as a nation.

By the 1970s the Order was in trouble due to the new censorship and ways of thinking: it was regarded as 'racist', 'imperialist' etc. etc. The author, who is herself wedded to the new ways of analysis and thinking, argues that the IODE's history is based on a 'hegemonic identity that appealed to an enlightenment sensibility of unquestioned conquest and colonization of native peoples'. The Order believed in 'British democracy and constitutional monarchy, the Christian myths and saintly symbols of the British Isl es, and economic and cultural "progress" through new innovations and technologies'. (She does not explain what 'Christian myths' and 'saintly symbols of the British Isles' are.) She does show how Canada was different from the other great Dominions because of the proximity of the U.S. The IODE played a significant role in developing a Canadian identity which, apart from Quebec, retains a role for the wider patriotism embodied in the Canadian Monarchy. (A.G.D.)