Gender Roles and the Beginning of Spring

Call me old-fashioned, but I love March 1st. You know why? Well, first of all, because it's warm and the weather is nice and pretty and I can wear skirts again (I know, so 1950s of me, right?). But also because there is this tradition, at least here in Romania, for the men to give "martisoare" to women. Now, these are usually pins or cute tiny cats or whatever. Small gifts with the traditional red and white cord thing. It's cute. Oh, and of course, flowers. It's mainly hyacinths, that's the go-to 1st of March flower. Now, of course in this age of consumerism most men go that extra step and buy fancier presents, which doesn't really make much of a difference, but it's a sweet gesture.
And I just love seeing them. I was just out and almost all the men I saw had a flower in their hands and/or a gift bag. And it's sweet. It's really sweet, you know? It's something that makes me feel like it's truly spring.

And I was thinking, as I walked, that it's such a sexist tradition. I mean March is supposed to be the month of women here (there is also Women's day or Mother's day on the 8th, so a lot of flowery traditions). How dare they assume our gender? And how sexist is it for men to imagine we need them to buy shit for us? Excuse me, I can buy my own flowers, thank you very much.

_{Well, these were from my brother, but still....}
But it's sweet. And I think that a lot of these sweet, good-intention gestures are threatened in today's PC, equal rights bullshit society. And that's very upsetting. I mean, I looked at all these men with flowers and gifts and they didn't look like wife-beaters. I doubt they abuse their partners or anything like that. Well, some might. But they'd do that anyway. Anyway, this isn't about that. This is about the fact that these feminazis are trying to take anything that is nice out of this world.
I mean, as a woman, I don't find it offensive or patriarchal or condescending that men traditionally give gifts and flowers and celebrate beautiful, delicate women. It's a fertility thing, I believe. And of course, a consumerist thing. But one thing it's not is a sexist thing, you know?

And little by little, these feminist trends do threaten to eliminate such sweet traditions. I mean, men wouldn't give flowers to a woman at the office or whatever if they knew she might well accuse them of sexual harassment or anything like that, would they?
Luckily, all these stupid trends haven't caught on so much here in Romania. And I'm fucking glad. I love that I can still see guys offering flowers to the one they love or being courteous to a female acquaintance (holiday or no).

At the same time, it's not a big deal. For example, I was seeing a friend today and I stopped in at a shop on the way and bought a little necklace for her. It wasn't a big deal, it was just a nice gesture. I bought my mother flowers. What can I say, it's my way of being a feminist.
All these things that these extremists love to cherry-pick, they're not about "gender roles" or about being backwards, they're about being nice to other people. But how would they know? They're seeking to burn half the population at the stake, so I doubt they know about nice...

Here, in Romania, it's only women who are supposed to get something for Martisor. But in our neighboring Moldavia, it's men also. You see Moldavian guys with red and white bracelets in March. That didn't happen through any kind of protests and Moldavian men refusing to be identified as such. It's just a sweet tradition. It's that fucking simple.

Thanks for reading and happy 1st day of spring,