Date:         Thu, 9 Jan 1997 20:17:18 -0800
Subject:      Sub:Valentine's Contest: For Women Only....:Essay

There's still time to send your entry! Check out
http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/val97/val.html for details.

Please reserve all critiques on contest entries until after Valentine's
Day!

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     For Women Only-Why Valentine's Day is Really for Men

    There are those that say the Valentine's holiday is really a vehicle to
enrich the coffers of the Hallmarks, the florists and the candymakers.
While this may be true, I would submit that the holiday can be a sweet, and
"official" way for the men in our lives to tell us of their love.  Without
an officially sanctioned holiday, our husbands, boyfriends and "significant
others" would be stripped of an excuse, reason or obligation to tell the
women who enchant their lives that they love them. Such "telling" may take
the form of a garishly decorated heart box filled with calorie-laden candy,
a large and outrageously expensive floral arrangement and not to mention the
mushy cards from Hallmark.
    It is only the males of our species that should be required to provide
gifts of romance to the females.  Because, as every woman who ever breathed
knows full well, we spend every other day of the calendar year giving gifts
of love to the males that decorate our lives.
     We scratch the itchy backs with long fingernails, worry when rattling
coughs rack male lungs, and eschew the laundry detergents that cause itchy
shirts.  We offer a warm hug, freely and with no concern for derision, as
work-weary male psyches require.  We monitor their medicine, food and sleep
habits.  We are women.  It's what we do.
    This is not to suggest that our men do not love us on the other calendar
days.  Not at all.  Men, if they were to freely admit, adore the women in
their lives.  A man is not complete unless there is a woman in his life.
Women, however, do not require a male in their lives with quite the same
intensity.  We are able, after all, to find things without the opposite sex
to guide us, clothe ourselves without assistance from our mates, and take
our medicine with no need for gentle urgings from our significant other.  A
man without a woman is like a fish without water.  A woman, to quote a
famous cliche, needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.     Well, perhaps we
need men  a little more than a fish needs a bicycle, but the comparison is
not lost.
     It is not in the nature of the human male to scratch the backs
(first...no fingernails) or give unsolicited hugs.  As females that readily
accept the nature of things, we do not require.
     Except on Valentine's Day.
    On this holiday, our men are given "permission" by the mass media and
greeting card makers, to demonstrate their love.  This holiday grants them,
with no concern for seeming unmanly, to purchase a totally useless gift for
the females of their love.  Such gift is, to our men, allowed to be
sentimental, garish, and serve as icon to a male's concept of love
demonstration.
    Women, I conclude, are not required to purchase the candy hearts for the
men in their lives.  On Valentine's day, the women of the world need only
sit back in their chairs to await the gifts of love.  For the men we love
can, on this one day only, indulge themselves to purchase all the worldly
goods that symbolize love.....to them.  It is only on a subconscious level
that males understand that thoughtful backscratchings and warm hugs are
gifts given freely to them by their women, and on every day of the calendar
year.
      They understand the concept enough, however, to embrace the
Valentine's day holiday as a vehicle to give their women a love gift as fits
the male's concept of romance.  They are men.  It's what they do.


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They say it takes money to make money. They're
right. You even need a coin to scratch off a
lottery ticket.

Michelle
winebird@inreach.com