If there is time, I will.
It is certainly something I hear a lot about in my research with women veterans, that they don't readily self-identify as veterans. I also hear that they encounter situations in their day-to-day life where they are not recognized as veterans: having a veteran's licence plate and someone commenting on how many years their husband served, or going to Remembrance Day with their medals and being asked whether those are their father's medals. Those are stories that I hear a lot. I think that makes it all the more difficult to self-identify.
Again, this hierarchy of service exists, which is a gendered hierarchy that is linked to length of service, type of service, combat or not, deployed or not. That's a reality for a lot of veterans, not just women but also veteran men, who may not identify as readily if they have not served in combat and been deployed. I think that is part of the broader culture that needs to change as well.
I think there is also a lack of a clear-cut woman veteran identity that you can step into in Canada. There's no social imagination of who a woman veteran is. If you talk about veterans, people will see the image of an elderly Second World War veteran. I think that's part of what needs to change at a broader national and societal level, that we see women as service members and as veterans.