I have been following Condoleeza Rice's travels across Asia as the new Secretary of State. I wonder how she handles the stress of her job. It can't be easy working in politics on such an international level. Long hours, travel. If it were me I would probably get sick. Most women suffer from some sort of somatic illness, whether it is an irritable bowel or migraines. We communicate through our bodies. It is something we taught, I think, through the generations of repression, women learned how to communicate all of their anger and sadness through sickness. It was acceptable for a woman to be sick and frail. Now in more modern times, women are still communicating with their bodies because we haven't learned how to behave any other way. We have the opportunity to share our feelings in so many different ways but we are still caught up in some emotional trap, for example, trying to be superwoman. We want it all- family, career, money, health, beauty and lots of material possessions. If we are sick we are weak and so we take lots of medicine and we work long hours and we suffer to be like a woman in a magazine staring at us, smiling, saying, "I do it, why can't you?"

I have a lot of respect for woman that can strike some kind of balance in their lives. I don't know if men feel that same pull as women do. We are not just partners in a committed relationship, we are daughters, sisters, friends. With that comes a lot of responsibility and pressure from the people that we love the most. Finding that balance is not easy.

So when I look at truly powerful women, I wonder if they have any kind of somatic illness. I wonder if they have migraines that make them crawl under the covers with the shades drawn. I wonder if they have TMJ or grind their teeth at night thinking of all of the things they left undone. In the case of Condoleeza Rice, I wonder if she is constipated. I wonder if she eats enough fiber, if she follows a specific diet, if she works out. I wonder if she really is stressed with her life or if she just remains focused on her career, working for President Bush, so that she doesn't have to think about meeting a nice man or woman to spend the rest of her life with. She doesn't have to worry about having children or hanging out with her friends because she is work. She is a well-trained machine of political power and all else is second or lower.

Women are born multi-taskers and it is only fitting that we feel so many things in so many different ways, not just emotional but physical too. I wonder though about the toll that the stress that comes with such a high profile life does to someones stomach. Maybe she has alot of assistance the way hollywood mothers always seem to have three on-call nannies for one child. Maybe its harder to be a regular jill-schmo who has to travel 2 hours on the subway every day, work nine hours, and come home and feed her cats/children/elderly relatives and still maintain a social life.

It makes you wonder what condition the assistant to the Secretary of State is in.

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