Occupy Valentine’s Day!
by westwood
First, a Valentine’s Day present for you (and me). CPB is joining us as our in-house illustrator. Please let the joyous gyrating begin. CPB is a lovely, talented individual who is capable of arranging lines in a fashion more pleasing than randomness (and we are lucky to have her).
So, let’s proceed to the meat of this fleshy red day, shall we?
What is Occupy Valentine’s Day? It has nothing to do with the formal Occupy, and there will be no delicious chocolate occu-pies, and definitely no recitations of occu-pi to the 137th decimal place.
On Occupy Valentine’s Day, it’s about bringing down the man. Specifically, this man:
OV-Day (which to me seems an awkward combination of ‘Ovechkin” and ‘Venereal Disease’) was started by Samhita Mukhopadhyay, who has a track record of being fantastic. She, and the OV-Day supporters, bring their ire for two reasons in particular.
1. Valentine’s Day purports to celebrate love, but only places value on certain kinds of relationships. Those that are
- committed
- heterosexual
- exclusive
- permanent-leaning
Honestly, if you can’t see the logical problems in there already, then your very presence is facepalm inducing. The quick logic of it is that V-day’s main value is love, but there is nothing in definitions of what love is or means between people that includes any of those listed caveats (especially buying shit). If you aren’t yet convinced that V-day is a bit of a crock, then lets see what the facts say.
- The average Canadian male spends $138 on a V-day gift. The average Spanish man spends $239.
- Young adult couples are more likely to break up on or around V-day than other times of the year.
- Approximately 1 billion greeting cards are sent out each V-day (I shudder to think at the trees that died so some bozo could put ‘You are my honeybear’ on a piece of paper).
- The overwhelming response by men, when asked about their motives for gift-giving, was obligation
- Scientists report the holiday as “fostering materialism, togetherness, and gender roles.” Take that however you will.
I think that about settles it for me. And I’m not alone. There is a long history of anti-consumerism and alternative consumerism rallying around this day. Ultimately, as the scientists say, it is merely a day “worthy of study due to the unique consumption, gift/card exchange, grooming, dating, and romance-based consumer behaviors associated with this holiday.”
Lets make it more than that. Lets make it about love, like it ought to be, and show someone that you care (which hopefully you do the other 364 days a year as well). But not with stuff, and by golly, not with a paper card. Trees need their lives more than your shnookums needs your throwaway chicken-scratch love notes.
So what will you do/did you do for V-day or OV-Day? Did you spend a pile of money and then break up with your sweetie, or did you take Mukhopahyay’s suggestion and “Have a sexy conversation by candlelight with your partner about structural inequity?”. I sure hope it was the latter.
Filed under: critical thinking, logic | 8 Comments
Tags: cupid, feminist, gifts, mukopahyay, occupy, romance, valentine's day
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Recent Comments
candle-light breakfast on the bed, followed by paper fight as the post mAn can not read the sign NO JUNK MAIL
Hmm… yeah, all I’m getting from this is that I should move to Spain.
KIDDING.
I think it’s nice to get little messages from people on Valentine’s Day saying that they care about you (like texts!
).
I’m also thinking it would be worth taking things a little further. Not just OV Day but OH Day (hm, that doesn’t look so good in writing) to cut down on the consumerism AND the rigid structure of values (committed, heterosexual, exclusive, permanent-leaning and such) for holidays in general.
Every holiday in the US has been commercialized!
There is a lot of power in expectations.
I’ve always just gone with my heart.
It’s worked well for me.
Not so good for the economy I guess.
I always enjoy seeing what other artists create, thank you!
Yeah, Valentine’s Day, like so many other days are totally blown out of proportion. All about buying something. OVD!
Great post!
You’re right! I didn’t do anything with my guy that we don’t normally do. We had a great day!
V-day is dumb. I don’t celebrate it/believe in it. If you can’t take the time to appreciate/do something romantic/say I love you what have you for the one you love/people in your life any other of the 364 (or 365 considering this year is a leap) days then something is wrong, in my opinion. Me and my guy say bah-hum-bug to it all!
On that note, all I did was study for a test
I don’t like the commercial proportions those holidays have taken, and I find it especially unpleasant that “young” couples should feel pressurized into buying stuff (and spending lots of money) on that specific day.
But to those who “did nothing unusual” on that day, I sure hope you do celebrate your love on a regular basis. There’s no reason why you should do it on that day more than any other day, BUT… life does get busy, “old” couples forget to go on dates, do special things together or simply say “I love you”… and then wonder why the flame is fading away.
On a side note, I do not understand why a celebration of love should exclude same-sex couples! Who ever said that? On Valentine’s day, I even celebrate my love for my kids!!!
Obligation is a pretty stupid reason to express affection. We should tell the people we love that we care about them every day and not because greeting card and floral companies dictate a day on which to do so.
I hate consumerism based on obligation, especially overt consumerism that is exclusionary.