To further ensure that women
veterans enjoyed access to VA ben- efits and services on par with their male counterparts, Congress passed legislation in 1994 establishing the Center for Women Veterans. The center monitors and coordinates the VA’s administration of benefits and services for women veterans. It also promotes cultural transforma- tion through the Women Veterans Programs (established in 2012) and other collaborative initiatives with federal, state, and local governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders. Despite these and other efforts,
however, many women still did not think of themselves as veterans. “We anecdotally asked in an evaluation why they do not self-identify as vet- erans,” says Betty Moseley Brown, who is associate director of the Cen- ter for Women Veterans and holds a doctorate in education. “The No. 1 answer was that they never served in combat. No. 2 was that they didn’t deploy, and No. 3 was they didn’t re- tire from military service.” Both the experience and the
perception have been largely differ- ent for the post-9/11 generation of women veterans. “They’re out there, they’re serving, and they’re proud of it,” Maffucci says. The good news, she says, is they identify as veterans. The bad news is, estimates of the num- ber of women veterans who would seek VA services based on past usage might have been misleading. “That probably is partly what contributes to the VA not being prepared,” she says. “We’re already behind the power
curve,” Campos says. “These women veterans are already coming, and if we don’t get them now, they’re going to show up in other places. They’re going to show up as home- less. They’re going to be struggling.” According to Disabled American
Veterans (DAV), which conducted an assessment of the policies and programs pertaining to women vet-
MARCH 2016 MILITARY OFFICER 99
erans at the departments of Defense, Labor, and Housing and Urban De- velopment as well as the VA, post- 9/11 women veterans have higher rates of unemployment than male veterans and nonveteran women and are at least twice as likely as nonvet- eran women to be homeless. “Hundreds of thousands of women
have answered the call of duty and put themselves at risk to preserve our nation’s security,” says Joy Ilem, na- tional legislative director at the DAV. “They have kept their promise and served faithfully; now it is time we keep our promise to them.”
Making the call “In the past, women didn’t engage in VA services, but women who served in the most recent deployments, since 2001, have been enrolling in VA at a 60-percent level,” says Hayes. Despite the increase, the VA has
found women veterans still don’t ac- cess their benefits on a par with men. Women, in general, tend to wear
many hats, often caring for others before they care for themselves.
Women servicemembers and vet- erans are also more likely to be di- vorced or single parents, according to the DAV. “Because of societal norms,” the organization said in a statement, “women are consistently challenged to balance family, work, and commu- nity roles in a way not experienced by men. The perceived demand to address all competing priorities si- multaneously creates an enormous challenge for military women and transitioning women veterans.” According to the VA, all of that helps contribute to a lack of aware- ness among women veterans pertain- ing to their benefits, the availability of services, and/or their eligibility. The Women Veterans Call Center is among the initiatives designed to help correct this imbalance. Call cen- ter representatives, all of whom are women and many of whom are veter- ans themselves, are trained to answer questions and provide personalized information on a broad range of top- ics, ranging from ID cards, GI bill benefits, and VA cemeteries to health care. If there is an urgent matter, the
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