Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, I know where I fall, but do you?

With Valentine’s day coming up, I question several things:
1. Do we celebrate purely because we feel obliged to.
2. Are women too independent to commit to a in house relationship.
3. How much has society changed and more importantly how much have women changed over the last 50 years.

Valentine’s day is traditionally the day that couples dedicate the whole day to pay their partner complete attention. It’s a day to make singles feel either lonely or berate those who are snuggling up with their loved one and more importantly it is the day supermarkets charge ridiculous amounts for some flowers and a bit of chocolate. Has valentines’ day just become a social pressure for us to buy into the commercial market of card makers, florists and chocolate makers.

Regardless whether you agree with the commercialness of the “love day”, it is here to stay and millions of people around the world will be spending a crap load of money on cards, gifts and eating out. so with all the promotional advertisements on TV, radio, in newspapers or in shops and restaurants, do even those of us who refuse to buy into the commercially driven market still feel a pressure to spoil our loved ones? Even strong independent women who declare their disgust for the over priced roses may give into being hypocrites in order to receive a dozen on Valentine’s morning. does this then mean that if something is completely shoved in our faces enough that we will give into the pressure and submit ourselves? Isn’t that what Christmas has been about for years. With less and less people attending church regularly, and yet still celebrating on the 25TH December each year. I wonder what would happen if suddenly there was no commercial strand to it, would that then mean that less people would submit to it? Possibly, but it would take years and years. But isn’t that then how traditions fade out? The pressure is lost and gradually over time, people stop making the tradition and eventually it fades into the history books.

Our society is so driven by pressure and that brings me to my next point. With women not having the pressure of society to become mothers and wives as soon as they leave school has opened up for the independent woman to flourish in our society. In general, these women live by themselves, have successful careers and maybe have on and off boyfriends or a string of interesting relationships. They are stereotypically intelligent and possess the ability to live without the constance of a male living in their home.

But does our string of independent women mean that we’ve developed a generation of women who don’t want or need a man to justify their existence? These women prove time and time again that having “their own space” is crucial for their own self being. They enjoy having male company but anything remotely close to a “live-in” relationship scares them and they fear losing their independence.

Women’s roles in society have changed and progressed in the past 50 years. The independent woman is far more prominent in today’s society than it would have been 50 years ago. Our mothers and especially our grandmothers chose partners early and settled with them into a marriage and family life. But that is not the norm anymore. Our society is split between those “child mothers” Who end up having a string of children born to different men and those women who put their careers first and strive for independence. True, there are those who attempt both a family and a career which is again another transgression of what once was. The types of women we have in today’s society is a far cry from the house-wives of the 30s. Those house-wives are a rare breed and it makes one curious of what future generations hold for the role of women in society?

so whether you celebrate Valentine’s day with that special someone or not, just consider these points and ask yourself, where do you fall?