I had so been looking forward to A Force to Be Reckoned With: A History of the Women’s Institute by Jane Robinson but found myself surprisingly indifferent to it once I started reading. It is a good and informative book, giving a solid overview of the group’s development over the last hundred years or so, but for me it felt like there was something missing. Robinson does a good job of presenting the facts but it felt very dry, even though the writing style is enjoyable.
To begin with, I was perhaps irrationally irritated by Robinson’s fondness for referring to anywhere in Canada as ‘backwoods’. We have a lot of places that can legitimately be described as backwoods, being both wooded and sparsely populated. Generally, the places that Robinson specifically referred to as backwoods were not, being either rural agricultural communities or, in one case, a provincial capital. This is a foolishly small thing but I found it incredibly off-putting.
The WI began in the farming community of Stoney Creek, Ontario in 1897 but it wasn’t until almost twenty years later (in 1915) that it was successfully established in the UK. From WWI to the present, Robinson chronicles the group’s accomplishments, from the requisite jam-making and ‘Jerusalem’-singing to their advocacy for more education on contentious issues like family planning and, as soldiers returned from First World War, sexually transmitted diseases. So much of what the WI has done from the beginning, and what makes them such an admirable group, has been about making sure women had the education and confidence to improve their quality of life – all their larger contributions spring from that:
The WI’s most significant contribution to feminism remained, and remains still, what it had been from the very beginning: to equip women with the confidence to think and speak for themselves, and to make well informed decisions for their own good and for the benefit of their families and the wider community.
But, in many ways, this felt like a very shallow history. The WI’s accomplishments are listed off and a few of their most notable champions described but always through rose-coloured glasses. Robinson acknowledges the challenges and conflicts faced early on when the Women’s Institute was struggling to establish itself in Britain and, for me that was probably the most fascinating part of the book, especially concerning the challenges of imposing a democratic organization on a class-conscious society. After that, everything is generally delightful and wonderful, moving from strength to strength, creating a book that becomes (I hate to say it) dull. The WI’s achievements, impressive though they are, are presented in such a bland, uninspiring way that I found myself thoroughly underwhelmed by even their most salacious efforts, like grannies pushing for safer working conditions for prostitutes.
Really, I think my issue with the book was its complete lack of human interest. There are lots of facts but there are none of the anecdotes that make similar histories so fascinating. I could not help but contrast it with the excellent How the Girl Guides Won the War by Janie Hampton, which was such an exciting and engaging read. The organizations are not that dissimilar (and in fact have worked together, particularly during WWII) but Hampton’s vivid details and well chosen statistics made for a far more interesting history. I would still recommend A Force to Be Reckoned With because of the excellent overview it does give of the WI and Robinson’s obvious enthusiasm for her subject. I just wish she had gone into more depth, giving more details and stories, which would have made for a much more interesting read.
The Captive Reader 
I had no idea the WI began in Canada, My mother was a WI member for a while, and some of her friends (well into their 80s) have been members for half a century or more and have been involved in various rural campaigns over the years. I think for many older women, raised in an environment where they didn’t have jobs and weren’t expected to have opinions of their own, it provided an opportunity to become aware of political/social issues. It also gave them an outlet for their creative skills, through arts/crafts’needlework/knitting and, long before it became fashionable they were involved in healthy eating, cooking with local produce and reducing waste. There are obviously stories to be told about the WI and its members – but from your review it sounds as if this is not the book to do it.
I think this does a good job of telling the story of the WI but not of its members, which for me was the problem. As a very positive overview of what the organization has accomplished and why it is important, this is excellent.
Oh that’s a shame – I still want to read it, not least because like Chris above I had no idea that it began in your area. i thought it was British born and bred! So I guess I will probably try to read it anyway, even if it doesn’t go as far as it could, because my knowledge is obviously very sketcy.
As a basic history, it’s very good! For me, because I knew the basic outline of the WI’s history both from my other reading and from my school years (we were very big on grassroots women’s groups from the 19th Century, perhaps because I was at an all-girls school), there wasn’t anything particularly new here which is maybe why it disappointed a bit. And I do just love anecdotes, which this is lacking!
LOL – I almost want to read it so I can be righteously indignant about the ‘backwoods Canada’ comments. (The colonies are so quaint, aren’t they?)
Loved the review!
Canada doesn’t come up often but yes, it really did have a ‘oh, those quaint colonials off in their log cabins’ feel!
I liked this more than you did but agree about the rose tinted glasses. It seems unlikely that it was all sweetness and light as Robinson suggests – it seemed to me that part of the story was missing. I can well imagine that finding a niggle at the beginning would make it a hard book to warm to, but like you also think that until something better comes along it’s well worth reading. I had no idea how much social work the WI had been involved in and came away with a new respect for the institute.
My school covered off a lot about the WI and similar women’s groups (I have no idea why, perhaps because we were an all-girls school?) so for me part of the disappointment was not learning too much new information about the organization. I think this is an excellent overview, I just wanted more! Although I did learn a lot about Lady Denham, who I was unfamiliar before – did you feel that the biographical sketch of her was a little lengthy? I got the impression from Robinson that I was supposed to admire Denham greatly but I think my main takeaway was that she was a woman who ignored her asthmatic husband’s requests that she stop smoking so much at home.
I think Robinson admired her tremendously and she certainly sounds like she deserves her own biography, I would agree that she got a disproportionately large section of this book.
This is the first time I’ve really read or heard anything very much about the WI beyond the old Jam and Jerusalem line and I was amazed by what they’ve achieved/been involved in.