It is articles such as this, “I was the first female cadet at Royal Military College. Decades later I realized I was never ‘one of the guys,’” that get me writing, often angrily typing on the keyboard.

I have no objection to people writing about their experiences, and far be it for me to deny their experiences. But at the same time, they do not speak for me and I therefore feel compelled to offer my views such that uninformed people can see multiple perspectives.

That said, I take exception to extrapolating from experiences in the 80’s and saying it is still the case now. Armstrong says that women are called on to sacrifice too much to fit in, even to this day. Really? Who’s calling on them to sacrifice??? Did they forget my number?

And what about her metarule? She says “So at RMC, we were developing a generation of leadership with the entrenched bias that it is culturally unnecessary to treat women as equals. That’s just as true today.” Really? Not my lived experience. I suppose it could be, because I’m not at RMC right now to offer a true assessment. But I am still serving, and see a lot of young officers who are recent graduates, and based on that, I’m inclined to disagree with her. Not to mention it’s a pretty bold statement to make on an institution that you have not been a part of in recent years.

So I guess this means I’m going to have to read this book. Not only that, I’m going to have to try to put aside my bias, and give it a fair shake. Consider it research for my next piece.