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Love is not enough between a woman and a man or – is it more important for me to turn on the washing machine than to buy a box of candy?
We all already know that love is idealized, but I don’t think we are really aware of how much. We are taught to call love many things that are not, and patriarchy is very intertwined with it and its romanticization. That’s why I’ll say about Valentine’s Day – we’ve been taught to think that love is enough, but it’s not. We’ve been taught to think that it’s enough for someone to genuinely love us, but it’s not enough, it really isn’t.
Come on, the holidays have passed, so the memory is probably still fresh: who organized the celebration in the homes? Who thought of what to buy as a gift for children, parents, loved ones and who bought those gifts? Who thought about what can be prepared, either at celebrations or at the festive table? Who prepared all this? Who cleaned up after the guests left? Who decorated the home? And who most likely has a full-time job with all that? I think it’s clear what I’m getting at: women’s unpaid work is the very essence of the holiday spirit.
Love is not enough because in heteronormative relationships, the burden of housework is still on women, even though women work today, they have another shift waiting for them when they come back from work, and the work is even greater if they have children. In Serbia, women spend on average twice as much time as men in unpaid housework, a little more than five hours a day. Women’s work remains invisible and taken for granted.
On the other hand, women have been taught from a young age that this kind of relationship is love. This pattern is especially evident in emotional work, which involves planning, caring, providing emotional support and assistance, as well as conflict management, which is better known as “dropping the ball.” Emotional work is also some kind of work , but it is invisible and therefore is not considered work at all in the capitalist-patriarchal society.
I believe that in a relationship where there is no equality , there is basically no love either. And don’t think that when I say equality, I mean equality. We are not equal, nor should we be. We are not equal, nor is that possible.
And then we come to Valentine’s Day, which is a Western holiday , but it is also celebrated in our country. And while many try to mark it as romantically as possible, hardly anyone thinks about how much love is actually work.
Therefore, instead of candy bars and teddy bears, perhaps the most beautiful gift for Valentine’s Day would be a simple but powerful one: equality . Taking the burden of everyday life together, recognizing the invisible work and sharing it, understanding that love is not just a feeling, but an act.
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