When you hear these little comments, whether it's about your fingernail polish or your hair or what you're wearing at the time, it can feel like the … - Carey Lohrenz

All I wanted desperately was just to blend in and be a fighter pilot, not a female fighter pilot, she says. The plane doesn't know what gender you are. The plane just wants to fly.

So, knowing that history and understanding that every day I showed up, I was standing on the shoulders of greatness, she says. Calm is your superpower, but the relentless scrutiny simply because I was a woman, that was nonstop.

I wanted to fly fighters because those pilots were the cream of the crop,” she says. “I thought to myself, Well, it takes about two years to get through this program. So maybe by the time I’m done, they will have lifted the law.”