Valentine’s Day Is for Everybody

I think Valentine’s Day is a shitty holiday for lovers. I think it’s an even shittier holiday for people who are in between lovers, or don’t want lovers, or aren’t getting along with their lovers. I mean, it’s not that I’ve never had a really romantic Valentine’s Day. One year my husband and I lit some candles and listened to some accordion music and ate some pastries and wondered, “Could this evening get any more romantic?” And then this happened:

Obviously the answer was “yes.”

But that incredibly romantic evening (there were FOUR weddings, you guys) was the exception that proves the rule. I’m in love, but I know that love is 1) a brutal trick played on us by our selfish genes to get us to reproduce and 2) destined to end in tears (don’t forget the funeral.) If you’re in love and happy, don’t go to a goddamn restaurant and let everyone watch you share a single noodle. Keep your head down and hope the evil spirits haven’t noticed you yet. At the same time I really love Valentine’s Day. I really love holidays in general, and also Valentine’s Day has the #1 best holiday color scheme. Red and pink and white! Overlaid by doilies! Dipped in chocolate! Coated with sugar! Drenched in glue! Brittle with glitter! Trapped on the sidewalk under an inch of ice and a dusting of snow! So sugary. So bloody. So tacky. So superfemme.

Excerpt from my Valentine’s Day vision board

For me, Valentine’s Day has always been a time to celebrate girly kitsch—candy, cookies, glitter, red shoes, foil stickers. It’s also been a time to celebrate love—not necessarily romantic love, but the love I feel for my friends, my family, my neighbors, my students, my classmates. It’s like a low-pressure Christmas: a good excuse to send cards, distribute treats, have a party, but only if you feel like it. Here’s what I think: everybody already thinks of Valentine’s Day as a women’s holiday anyway. Some groups, including Eve Ensler’s V-Day organization, have already repurposed it as a day to acknowledge and combat violence against women. Can’t we just go ahead and totally rebrand it as a major feminist holiday? A silly, serious, girl-crazy, community-minded love-fest of sparkles and social justice? Here’s my vision of a friend-focused, feminist V-Day:

ACTIVITIES

LOVE YOUR COMMUNITY BACK: I want to say you should sign up to do some volunteer work as a loving act for Valentine’s Day. Rather than signing up for just any volunteer shift on Valentine’s Day itself, though—which could turn out to be a way to feel good about yourself, but might not actually do much good for the organization you’re volunteering for and the people it serves—talk to friends and neighbors about what your community needs and what you can all do to meet those needs. Contact local nonprofit or community organizations to see what they actually need help with: ongoing data entry or website support? Help with cleanup after events? Childcare during community meetings? And you can always give them some money. It’s probably been long enough since all the middle-class people gave out their holiday charity stocking stuffers and all the rich people did their end-of-year giving that you could really give some organizations a boost. Here are some suggestions, including organizations that have reclaimed Valentine’s Day as a day for justice and against violence:

• The Feb 14th Women’s Memorial March began in Vancouver in 1991 and now takes place in communities throughout Canada and the United States to “honour the lives of missing and murdered women,” particularly Indigenous women. You can join a local march in solidarity and/or donate by mail to support the costs of the march.
• Also in Canada, the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada sponsors Have a Heart Day “to ensure First Nations children have proper services that make them feel proud of who they are.”
• The ACLU has done a lot to protect love in America, from their 1967 defense of interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia to ongoing work toward marriage equality.

TAKE IN A VALENTINE’S PERFORMANCE: Go to a concert or movie or poetry reading that isn’t necessarily designed for, like, couples. On Valentine’s Day 1997 I went to see Bernadette Peters sing at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium with my mom. Bernadette wore a bright red, slinky dress and sang a song about masturbation called “Making Love Alone.” (Maybe that part was weird to go to with my mom.) On Valentine’s Day 1999 I went to see a screening of Harold and Maude with my friend Eva. We were just becoming friends, so it was kind of an amazing early date. This year, you could check out any of these Fun Friendly Feminist events, with or without a platonic pseudo-date or your mom:

• a special Valentine edition of Poets With Attitude (NYC, Feb 14)
• an Evening of Fun with Garfunkel & Oates’s Kate Micucci & Special Guests (LA, Feb 13)
• one of various beer-related parties and tastings during San Francisco’s Beer Week, including a beer brunch at Two Sisters Bar and Books (San Francisco, Feb 14)
• see one of several productions of The Vagina Monologues in your community on and around Valentine’s Day (nationwide)
• check out updated, student-authored alternatives to the Vagina Monologues at Columbia University in NYC or Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA (and read this useful Flavorwire post explaining why these students’ decision to move their focus beyond the vagina doesn’t count as “feminist infighting”!)

PASS OUT CANDY, POEMS, OR FORTUNES: When I was in high school, I passed out “love fortunes” on Valentine’s Day. I may have done it as an excuse to talk to cute boys, so maybe it doesn’t belong on this list, but I also did it as a way to entertain my friends and embarrass myself. You could pass out “love” poems instead, or Hershey’s kisses, or, I don’t know, dental floss or something, if you’re worried about everybody’s teeth. Pass them out at work or school or your local bar or your kid’s dance class or on the street, if you feel comfortable doing that.

WATCH A CLASSIC CHICK FLICK: Like When Harry Met Sally (my neighbor told me this was on Netflix! I think she lied! But Sleepless in Seattle is indeed on Netflix). Or Thelma and Louise (WEIRD SISTER editor Marisa Crawford explains its cultural importance here).

DRESS UP: Dressing up for Valentine’s Day will probably get you mocked by your coworkers, but the adorable outfit possibilities are endless. A minimalist heart graphic tee paired with red cigarette pants! A pink silk pantsuit with a red rose in the buttonhole! A frilly red dress and a wreath made out of glittery roses! A full-on Cupid outfit! Anything ever worn by Nicki Minaj!

Or maybe one of these uterus t-shirts from 4000 Years for Choice? You can get one in Pink Power or Revolutionary Red and show your love for reproductive justice.  If your outfit is too wild for the office, why not wear it to an exciting non-romantic Valentine’s Day party?

THROW A PARTY: My main proposal is that we just straight-out convert Valentine’s Day into Friendship Day. You can serve Friendship Day cocktails and Friendship Day cookies. One year I tried to serve those heart-shaped pizzas they were supposed to have at Papa John’s, but our local Papa John’s (on Flatbush Ave in Brooklyn) “didn’t have the machine yet.” (Note to self: See if you can rent a Papa John’s heart-shaped-pizza-making machine during the off season; I bet they’re cheap!)

People are allowed to bring their significant others, but only in those others’ capacity as FRIENDS. Provide guests with art supplies so they can make FRIENDSHIP DAY cards or other crafts (see below.) One Friendship Day tradition we developed was that whenever anyone left the party, everyone at the party had to say nice stuff about that person’s career.

CRAFTS

COOKIES: My favorite thing about Valentine’s Day is actually making heart-shaped cookies. Bake a bunch of sugar cookies, cut them out in heart shapes, and mix up some frosting with confectioner’s sugar, water, and food coloring. Then go nuts decorating them with sprinkles and stuff. Personally, I like to decorate cookies with contextually-appropriate love-related slogans. Like for a Friendship Day party I make a lot of red and pink cookies that say stuff like “Blood Bro” and “Shield Sis” and “Let’s B Platonic” and “Friendster.” Or when I was in a class on 19th-century poetry I made Whitman and Dickinson-themed cookies that said, “Undrape!” and “My Bare-Stript Heart” and “Libidinous Prongs” and “Emily + the Tide” and “Wild Nights!” You guys, there are so many forms of love in the world that can be celebrated on cookies.

CARDS:  It’s pretty fun to get together with your friends and make each other Valentines—or just make them by yourself and send them in the mail. I know a couple of people who send Valentines instead of holiday cards; they’re such a pleasure to find in your mailbox. (But nobody’s going to turn down a bell hooks Valentine e-card on their Facebook wall, either.)

Image created by The Rumpus? I think? Memes!

For non-Internet Valentines, all you really need is a pen and paper, but of course construction paper, scissors, glue, doilies, glitter, and markers help a lot. I like to buy a couple 99-cent packs of sparkly kitten or dinosaur stickers to really spark my party guests’ creativity. Good friendship Valentines say hilarious stuff like “I am your only friend,” or “For nine long years I have been your friend” next to a picture of Jean Valjean (what friend doesn’t appreciate a Les Mis joke?).

These are actual cards created at actual Friendship Day parties by my kooky friends and family.

Here’s a particularly good one my friend Sara made for a bro to give to another bro:

See, Valentine’s Day is for bros, too (what isn’t?). Hooray for friendship!