My military service to this point started out at the Royal Military College of Canada after basic training. It had been a number of years since women were introduced into the military college, naval service and submarine service. For me, when I came into that environment.... I can only speak for me. I think it was a very good and trusting environment. That's the generation in which I grew up in the navy.
My experience after leaving the Royal Military College was that, upon joining the fleet out here on the west coast, I had mentors and tutelage with respect to navigation and bridge watchkeeping on the bridge of a ship. There were female executive officers. There have been other great examples of great female leadership. With respect to my experiences, they've been very positive.
Now, I can't speak to how the women feel about those experiences. I think what's important here is that there is likely a generational divide within the Canadian Armed Forces about issues surrounding women in the service, LGBTQ, openness and sexual misconduct. There is a certain.... As soon as you hit a certain rank and age level, above that is one type of culture, and then below that is a different type of culture. There might be a bit of a grey zone there where people were raised in both.
I would say that definitely I'm in the lower half of that where it's been positive for me but, again, I can't speak for the females who served alongside me.