Betty and Germaine

Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability — they should go hand in hand.
- Donald Norman

I was lounging on my porch railing with O-ren just moments ago, when Betty and Germaine must have taken possession of me momentarily. At least, that's my only explanation for it since I had been pondering the nature of the leaves on a nearby tree only seconds before.

Simply stated, the average American woman must be a trilateral Superwoman triumphant over the spheres of career, home, and beauty/sexuality. (I could argue that she's a quadrilateral Superwoman, but for my current thought pattern, I'm lumping the last 2.) To which I thought - how now, brown cow? How did this get to be? Backlash to women's movement, aye, and that's a boogerbear to tackle. But interlaced with the backlash is also the fact that we're still raised to be people-pleasers and are used to doing more work than men for less - less pay, less praise, and less acknowledgment. So instead of picking the sphere (or proportioned combination of spheres) best suited to our personality and skills, we often carry them all on our backs at once. Awareness of the load on our backs can't remove it since it's held in place by social construct, and maintaining the proper placement of each sphere in relation to the others with regard to the social environment and our own needs and desires is always an exhausting struggle.

Anyhoo, such is a snippet of the ramblings in my head. Nowhere all-encompassing, and certainly not original thoughts, but mine for the moment nonetheless. And with that being said, I'm going to grab a bologna sandwich, apple juice, and a book and then go soak in the tub.

But first, somebody needs to create a new comic entitled "Betty and Germaine" detailing the adventures of America's favorite feminist duo.