Out Standing in the Field: A Memoir by Canada's First Female Infantry Officer. Sandra Perron. Toronto, Canada: Cormorant Books, 2017.
Out Standing in the Field is about the journey Sandra Perron took to become Canada’s first female infantry officer, and the first female member of the Royal 22e Régiment. Almost immediately upon joining the army, the obstacles, challenges, and frustrations of being a woman in the armed forces become apparent. Shortly after completing basic training, Perron was sexually assaulted by an officer one year ahead of her at university. During her infantry training courses, Perron proved an excellent soldier, despite a near constant barrage of harassment by some of her fellow officers. One incident saw Perron and other soldiers tied to a tree and being beaten during a simulation of being taken prisoner, an incident that would later cause outrage when photos were leaked. After finishing infantry training in 1992, Perron eventually completed tours in Bosnia and Croatia, the latter during Croatia’s final advance, Operation Storm, in 1995. Perron left the Army in 1996.
“Where did we go wrong?”
While this is a memoir of Perron’s experience in becoming the first infantry officer, the book is really much more. It exposes the dangerous physical and emotional toll a woman endures in a man’s world, especially one as traditionally masculine as the army. It exposes the constant microaggressions, the hundreds of “ceaseless little cuts,” as Perron puts it.[1] It exposes the fragility of a male ego. It exposes how culturally wired people are to think certain behaviors are acceptable.
While this is a memoir of Perron’s experience in becoming the first infantry officer, the book is really much more.
In trying to prove that she—a woman—could physically and mentally carry the load of an infantry officer, Perron made herself a target. She was better than many of the men in her units, some of whom could not handle being beaten by a girl. She became a target because she raised the bar, and that shamed them. Those men resented her because she was outstanding. Much of the book focuses on her time during infantry training, and her experiences in each phase. During each of the four training phases, Perron details the specific training as well as the specific harassments she had to endure. The men called her obscene names, described sexual acts in graphic detail around her, tampered with her uniform, and, in one childish incident, even threw pinecones at her.
Perron was given easy and safe tasks throughout her training, and even into her assignments. In Bosnia, she was assigned to headquarters rather than going on patrols with her unit, eventually causing her to speak out to her commanding officer. Perron writes that she “literally begged” him to allow her to go accompany a security escort with her men. During the incident, in which she admits to being insubordinate, she asks “How can I have any credibility at all when all I do is blindly dispatch troops from the command post?”[2] Perron constantly had to fight for respect as a soldier and a leader, a job that was made harder because she was a woman. While in Bosnia, she was moved to bunk with the nurses just because she was a woman. After her tour in Croatia, she was assigned as an instructor at the infantry training, but as a second in command to a junior officer because “a lot of young officers out there don’t believe that a woman should be in the infantry.”[3] When she questioned these assignments, she was often told they were for her own good, and to protect her.
They were doing what men have been taught for ages, that women must be protected. Yet, when a woman—this woman—entered their sacred masculine space that was the infantry, she was subject to judgment, harassment, and even assault. It did not matter that Perron was an excellent soldier. They would treat her as the enemy. Perron did have allies in her time in the army, though. Several of the soldiers she was with in infantry training stood up for her, and the majority of the soldiers under her command in Croatia “had no reservations about working for a woman. All they wanted was good leadership.”[4] Even the instructor who hit her in the prisoner exercise was one of the few who believed in her, seeing her as a tough soldier who could handle whatever came her way.
As much as this is a memoir of Perron’s time in the army, it is also a book about being your authentic self. Perron was constantly changing herself to be one of the guys, thinking it would help in being accepted. But she just stood out more. She was trying to be a character she created, and everyone else was trying to place her in a defined box. She was everything except what she was: a woman. Her then-partner saw it, her family saw it, even her own soldiers saw it. Once she saw it for herself, her relationship with her colleagues improved, but she continued to push herself beyond what was necessary.
“You might have climbed a tree too weak to stand.”
There is a feeling toward the end of the book, that Perron almost blames herself for what had happened to her, by joining an institution she knew was hostile, hoping it could change. Even beyond her military career and into her civilian life after sitting on the Board of Governors for the Royal Military College, she apologizes for not reporting offenses. It is frustrating to read her acknowledgement and regret, especially in the final line in her book. She ignores her own advice, advice once given to her by a respected colleague trying to warn her. Paraphrasing the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, the officer told Perron she might have climbed a tree too weak to stand. It was not until later she realized that he was telling her she may have joined a profession that was not ready or deserving of her. By ending the book saying “I am still not giving up on climbing a tree too weak to stand,” Perron instead chooses to not give up, and hopes to see change in the way women are treated in the military.[5]
While it is a military-specific memoir, it will also resonate with many women who are in any traditionally male-dominated professions.
Out Standing in the Field gives valuable insight into what women go through in the armed forces. While it is a military-specific memoir, it will also resonate with many women who are in any traditionally male-dominated professions. Perron’s experiences are important to understand for those looking to bring about change, a popular topic in this Me Too era. What Perron endured, and the response of those in leadership roles, highlights what needs to be addressed to put the military on track for improvement. It is not something that will happen overnight; this book illustrates the excruciatingly slow pace of change, if it happens at all. Still, Perron ends the book with hope for change. The reader may not fully agree.
Brandee Leon is a writer with a focus on terrorism and women in conflict. Among other things, she has written about Chechnya’s Black Widows, the importance of Transnistria, and the challenge of deradicalization, along with several book reviews.
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Header Image: Female soldiers of 2nd Battalion The Royal Highland Fusiliers, Royal Regiment of Scotland, Helmand Province, 2011 (Sergeant Rupert Frere/UK National Army Museum)
Notes:
[1] Sandra Perron, Out Standing in the Field (Toronto, Canada: Cormorant Books, 2017), 304.
[2] Perron, Out Standing in the Field, 209.
[3] Perron, Out Standing in the Field, 278.
[4] Perron, Out Standing in the Field, 253
[5] Perron, Out Standing in the Field, 315.