25 March 2024 – A book deal! Dundurn Press has accepted my proposal for Leaders All – Women in the Canadian Profession of Arms from 1946 to the Today. The story of women at Canada’s Royal Military Colleges will now be a section in a larger work about the rise of women in the Canadian Armed Forces, despite enduring resistance. Manuscript due at Dundurn in September 2025.
26 February 2024 – A path toward publication? After discussions with Dundurn Publishing, my proposal for a history of women’s leadership in the Canadian Armed Forces is currently being considered by their acquisitions team.
9 May 2023 – School’s Out! I was privileged to work with the great Ken McGoogan as my mentor in my final term and have now completed all requirements for my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax. The only thing left to do is an epic road trip from Kingston to Halifax to participate in Encaenia, (pronounced insane-eeh-ya, which seems quite à propos) the term for graduation that King’s has borrowed from Oxford. Encaenia, taking place on May 25, will be my first time on campus since starting the program in June 2021. The covid pandemic turned a low-residency degree into a “no-residency” degree, alas. Graduation will be followed by the Creative Nonfiction Collective Conference, also in Halifax, May 26-28.
8 March 2023 – Happy International Women’s Day! I was again privileged to take part, this time as a listener, at the Royal Military College of Canada’s IWD event. This year featured a talk by Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, the author of The Ones We Let Down: Toxic Leadership Culture and Gender Integration in the Canadian Forces. Her book focuses on the period 1989-1999, when the CF was ordered to fully integrate women within a decade by a successful Human Rights Act Tribunal case. And failed.
It was great to talk to her about our respective projects. Since my book will cover 1970-1989, I look forward to seeing how my research will segue into her work.
This evening, I will be participating in a speed mentoring event hosted by the Athena Network of the Royal Military College. I inevitably come away from these events more mentored than mentoring. The cadets always recharge me with their energy, passion and thoughtfulness.
12 June 2022 –
Just finishing up a nine-day intensive residency to kick off my second year. Unfortunately, it is online again as travel restrictions and health measures made it too risky to plan in-person. Here’s hoping for in-person graduation in May ’23.
I am truly excited to be working with a new mentor, the wonderful Carol Shaben, award-winning author of Into the Abyss, supported as well by a superbly generous and dynamic mentor group. Work on my book, Obstacle Course – Women Surviving RMC is proceeding well.
The Royal Military College of Canada is certainly in the news again, with the release of the Arbour Report slamming RMC for its failure to stop sexual misconduct and calling into question the very need for a military college to train officers for the Canadian Armed Forces. I am at work on an OpEd piece on this topic.
On March 8th, I was the keynote speaker at an International Women’s Day event at RMC. I shared some of the surprises that my research for my book has revealed, such as the extent to which the college and the armed forces resisted the call for the admission of women and the reasons behind it. The talk was a hit and generated lots of buzz about my book.
16 January 2022 –
Time flies when you’re a student. Christmas break was quiet. I just finished the winter residency for the University of King’s College Master of Fine Arts in Creative Non-Fiction. It was supposed to take place in Toronto, but we had to settle for an online version. Fortunately, the King’s MFA has done a brilliant job pivoting to online. The lectures were excellent and I saved money on travelling and accommodation. They only thing missing was the in-person interaction. Zoom just isn’t the same; but we certainly made the best of it. I really like my fellow students and can’t wait to meet them in person. Fingers crossed for June residency.
I pitched my book, Obstacle Course, The Story of Women at Canada’s Royal Military College to editors from some big publishing houses and it was well received! I am excited to write more of the manuscript now.
16 October 2021 –
I am working with my MFA King’s mentor, the great poet and essayist, Lorri Neilsen-Glenn, on my manuscript and other assignments for the program. It’s cutting into my time for blogging, but it’s for a good cause!
I have also started a series of recollections of Royal Military College Life in the early 1980’s with “Dear RMC Diary” Visit e-Veritas, the online magazine of the Alumni Association of Canada’s Military Colleges to check out these and many other interesting articles.
Manuscript in progress: Obstacle Course – The Story of Women at Canada’s Military Colleges
Still damp in her hastily tied robe after the most panicked shower of her life, Helga Rausch shivered at attention in the harshly lit hallway outside her room. The previous six weeks of boot camp now seemed like a resort holiday compared to Rook Term at Royal Military College. Their seniors, RMC Class of ’83, famously known as the “Last Class with Balls,” glared at the female recruits they would control for the next two months. The male recruits, who only days before had been their boot-camp buddies, now stared ahead stone-faced, angry at the females who “took too long,” earning the whole group a punishment. Helga bit back tears and planned how she would later sneak down to the forbidden payphone to call her mother and ask to come home, just as the men in charge predicted she would.
Forty years after that midnight call and her decision to stay, Helga seethed at the news of ongoing sexual misconduct, harassment and discrimination at Canada’s Military Colleges. What was the purpose of their sacrifice and struggle if nothing was ever going to change?
But is this the whole story?
What were the Colleges—Kingston, St Jean and Victoria—really like for women during these years? What did the Colleges get right in their preparations to admit women? What failures allowed misogyny and systemic obstacles to persist? Have the Colleges evolved? Is the obstacle course finally over?
Ex-cadet women’s experiences do not fit into a neat box. Cynicism and nostalgia jostle for space in their memories. Many look back fondly on their time; others are still too traumatized to talk about it. Women alumni went on to success in every field: was this due to their College experience or in spite of it?
Helga Rausch uses her own recollections and those of others to take us inside the stone walls and meet the extraordinary women who challenged Canada’s elite military academies.