| Summary: | Economic necessity saw the massive arrival of women into the British economy during the Great War. Their presence in the armed forces from 1917 was of special significance in that women, for the first time, found themselves working for and with rigorously all-male national institutions possessed of a complex system of rituals and symbols legible both inside and outside the forces. Equality for the members of the women’s forces, therefore, implied the right to share the symbols of rank, uniform and medals used by male soldiers. The career of Captain Margaret Campbell Gibson, the first W.A.A.C. Administrator to be awarded a Military Medal throws considerable light on the nature and importance of the struggle for the full “right to khaki”.
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