Diary Entry: The Gen X, Women's Rights Movement:

At age fourteen, I was fortunate enough to see women as medical doctors, at INOVA/Fairfax Hospital in Northern Virginia. As an impressionable, adolescent volunteer, I realized that women were natural leaders, and involved in medical research. This assisted me in leaving behind an oppressive, Jehovah's Witness congregation, that kept trying to brainwash me to believe that females must be submissive to men.

The patriarchal societal norms also became more apparent to me, as a Gen X'er, at Mary Washington College, when I studied Jim Crow laws, the "African Athena" book, and racial discrimination, in the wake of the Rodney King beating by corrupt, LAPD law enforcement and the L.A. Riots. Now, upon reflection, I wonder what inspired me, and I realize how much Marian Edelman and Hillary Clinton's civil rights leadership has impacted my smaller, often-politically marginalized, Generation X.

***Mark said I was an excellent mother. I almost went into labor on the U.S. Navy watchfloor, while pregnant, so I feel relieved to hear that from him. After reading that "Queen Warrior Isabella," book synopsis, I have a sense of guilt that seems to stem from my oppressive upbringing.

More than anything, I have been told too many times that Chinese-American and South Vietnamese-American women are not supposed to become what I had become in the U.S. Navy. I now think it's a positive accomplishment that I became a female officer candidate at a predominantly male, Caucasian, U.S. Navy, Pearl Harbor, Admiral's staff command, in a tight-knit, global, nuclear, submarine environment.***