Doing It on Valentine's Day

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. I’m a girl. As a female I woke up excited because I knew it was a special day for us, in love, females. It’s a great day to show how we do gender - unconsciously. My mind, like many others, was already programmed to be excited at all the great things that were going to happen on this day. I would look prettier than ever, I would get a box of chocolate, and a dozen red roses – I would be doing my …. gender. If I thought differently, I could be at risk of being labeled manly, homosexual, or ugly. Lorber describes doing gender as a programmed way to feel a sense of worth and identity. On Valentines Day, the definition of a woman is “the person receiving flowers”. So if you’re a “man”, receiving flowers would be equivalent to being called a woman - an insult to most. Lorber would describe this as a process, where “gender creates the social differences that define a woman and a man.” On Valentines day, females learn what is expected (act and look pretty to get flowers and chocolate) and act in expected ways. Lorber describes this as keeping gender order. Gender is an expression of culture and society. Society decided that women should be beautiful and fragile as symbolized by flowers and thus, are given such on Valentines day. Everyone does gender everyday- unconsciously.