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Actually, that title is somewhat misleading. "Loathe" doesn't carry adequately strong connotations. To arrive at how I really feel about Valentine's Day, we would have to add an entirely new word to the English lexicon, something a few standard deviations beyond "hate" in its purest sense. I also am perennially hounded about my stance on this disgusting "holiday" each and every year, so I thought that I might as well play offense this time around. And by the way, I'm about to mark myself as an unreconstructed, unapologetic Simone de Beauvoir-reading feminist. And I frankly don't give a rat's ass if undiluted feminism offends you, so this is your warning to stop reading now if it does.
When I tell people that I cannot stand Valentine's Day and that I basically ignore the event, their typical and invariable reaction is "How can you possibly be against love - love!!!!" This is, after all, a world ripped asunder by vitriol, bigotry, intolerance, loneliness, and all of those other rather nasty elements that can generally only be conquered by a nice dose of love.
Well, they're right. Love can never be criticized. Love is the greatest thing in the world. And guess what? Surprise of all surprises, I'm not against love! Imagine that! Which, logically extended to the full context of my argumentation, can only mean that I believe that Valentine's Day (at least the contemporary version of it) has absolutely nothing to do with love. And that is precisely how I feel. In fact, that idea is so important that I think that I will repeat it, bold and in big letters:
Valentine's Day, as currently celebrated in most of the Western world, has absolutely NOTHING to do with love. NOTHING at all to do with love.
And I really cannot emphasize "nothing at all" strongly enough. So if not love, what exactly are the cultural underpinnings of this pathetic event? There are two ideals at play here, the first being much more insidious and providing critically needed support for the second. The first underpinning is the absolute (yet subtle) cultural rejection of female equality; the second, which flows from this, is a capitalist exploitation of men dumb enough to buy into the myth that the women that they love are fundamentally "different" from and inferior to them. I'll discuss both of them briefly.
Valentine's Day, as practiced now, could not work in a society that truly believed that women and men are equals (or hey, even better yet, in a society that just ignored the whole bullshit gender binary, which is false, but I'll touch on that shortly.) This is partially because of the patent fact that Valentine's Day does not recognize that true love is mutual. Love is not a one-way street. While virtually every single woman in a relationship in America expects to receive something of value on Valentine's Day, empirical research data shows that only roughly five percent (5 out of 100!) of men receive anything at all from their female partners on Valentine's Day. Think about that. Year after year, the vast overwhelming majority - nearly all - of straight women in relationships are showered with gifts on Valentine's Day, and yet 95 out of 100 of them don't deem it necessary to return the favor. The point here, however, is not attaining a simple parity. To me, having the numbers at 100%/60% instead of 100%/5% would be no different at all. We need to ask why this pattern holds so firmly in order to realize why this "holiday" is a blatant attack on women, and this requires exploring the roots of the philosophy that treats women as inferior to men.
For as long as humans have existed on this Earth, women have been in an uphill battle to establish that they are more than the property of men. They've been remarkably unsuccessful in this battle for most of the history of humankind. What has served as the critical philosophical enabler for millennium of oppression and subjugation of women on the part of men is a single evil principle - "otherness" as de Beauvoir put it - that defines man (i.e., those humans with a penis) as the ideal manifestation of "humanity", with women representing an "other", somehow bastardized representation of the ideal. This "other" representation of the ideal has virtually always been seen as far inferior of the ideal, failing to attain the soaring heights of those of us endowed with an almighty penis. From this single principle flow all of the wrongs to which women have been subjected throughout history - being seen as nothing more than the property of their husbands, being denied basic human rights, accusations of moral and intellectual inferiority, and on and on and on.
Now, it only logically flows that because man is intelligent and mighty, while females are inferior, flawed and unintelligent, that man - men with penises! and morality as well - should protect women. This is the classical model; a woman is subservient to her man (in a religious context, husband) in all ways, and it is the duty of strong, intelligent man to protect this poor, pitiful little delicate rose who has fallen short of the ideal of humanity by design. Men are thus indefinitely charged with taking care of poor little women - of protecting them from their own incapability. This is sometimes seen as a selfish motive - if men don't protect women from killing themselves off due to their own incompetence and inability, how will "ideal" men further the species?
Let me be as clear as I possibly can: I emphatically, unequivocally, unapologetically reject that entire goddamned system of thinking. It repulses me in the same manner that I am repulsed by reading Nazi propaganda. EVERYTHING about it, every single idea from A to Z and every single logical inference in that school of thought, is totally and unwaveringly invalid to me. I don't find a single infinitesimal iota of truth in that entire way of viewing the world. Not one single redeeming quality. I am very hard-pressed to think of a worse view of reality. To me, that view of the world is every bit as crude, primordial, intellectually lacking, backwards, and downright immoral as the worldview of a hardcore racist or anti-Semite.
I strongly and categorically reject, first and foremost, the very notion of a gender binary. Countless scientific evidence has shown that there is more to reality than "male" and "female." The gender binary, in its remarkable ignorance, essentially sweeps transgendered and intersex people under the table, dismissing them as freaks of nature lower than humans when in fact they are full natural equals to the traditional "male" and "female" type models. Following from my rejection of the gender binary, I consequently and logically reject any and all notions of inequality or disparity between men and women. I recognize that there are obvious biological differences between females and males, but these biological differences do not establish one side as the "ideal", and the other side as, well, the "other." Both are complementary roles, and humankind could not be furthered in the absence of either. It is remarkably simple - men depend on women just as much as women depend on men. Period.
So arriving back at Valentine's Day, we can see how it plays off of the school of thinking that defines woman as the "weak other." Under this school of thought, women are unquestionably inferior to men. As a certain Facebook group bluntly puts it, "there are some things that men should always do for women", because, of course, those morons believe (whether they acknowledge it or not) that women are too stupid and incapable to do those things themselves. A woman is too incompetent, apparently, to open a door for herself, seat herself at a table, and buy herself a dozen roses at a local florist. Men - in their omnipotence, might, and charity - must do these things for the poor defenseless creature. Notice that love doesn't enter into the equation anywhere here, and nor does any sense of mutual obligation on the part of the woman. After all, why in the world would the woman possibly consider giving a gift to a man, since the man is already superior to her? It would be as senseless as a penniless pauper giving expensive French chocolate as a gift to Bill Gates. Love has nothing to do with their model. The man is obligated to put the woman on a pedestal because she inherently falls short - falling short is an intrinsic property of being a woman to these people- and thus the man does not give these things "out of love", but out of obligation to help support the "weak other" sex. Of course, for the woman there is no mutual obligation except to be subservient to her man - and that's because nature (or God) intended it that way, in that peculiar school of thought; woman, in fact, should be thankful that there is the mighty, omnipotent man to be subservient to because she would be too incapable to survive without his charitable and kind assistance. Valentine's Day, thus, could not function if people accepted that woman are, in fact, not inferior to men. That would sweep away the entire notion of obligation. The partners in a relationship would then be free to swap gifts and other tokens out of real, sincere love on their own volition - and it is highly unlikely that this would magically and randomly occur on just one (pre-determined!) day of the year.
I have always held up my mother in particular, and the strong women in my family in general, as the reason why I came to so firmly reject the "woman as other" viewpoint very early in life. My mother was inferior to no man on this planet. She was subservient to no man. She was the property of nobody. She needed no man to provide for her needs, whether they be physical or emotional. Her self-esteem and self-worth, as well as her own accomplishments, flowed from within her, not from within some charitable man. When she entered into relationships, it was as an equal and complementary partner - not as some mindless, subservient drone who needed a man to survive in this rough world. She would have viewed the notion of some man providing her with a gift out of "duty" as nothing short of the disgusting, ignorant, patronizing behavior that it is. And as I look throughout my family, I see no shortage of examples of independent, strong women who have outlived men and in fact, collectively, have accomplished more than the men in the family. They did not require the assistance of some man in affirming their humanity with some bogus, forced, duty-driven display of "affection" exactly once per year.
Of course, you can fully expect the capitalist to pounce wherever an opportunity is created, and this disgusting mess of a day created a prime, Class A opportunity for generating wealth. It has become a veritable arms race of sorts - after all, what "strong, powerful" man wants to only get his subservient, hapless woman a mere flower and card? Does he really care for her in that case? (translated, of course, to "Is his sense of duty and obligation really strong enough?") The ultimate winners of the Valentine's Day game are not women (they're in fact the biggest losers), but companies such as Hallmark. As one would expect, strong, penis-wielding men are willing to shell out enormous sums of money (not on their own volition, of course) just to show how much they care about those helpless, delicate little flowers that they happen to be dating (unless the woman has accepted her "God-given" role as a fully subservient twit, in which case they would be married. ) The capitalists who run these companies, meanwhile, are busy having raunchy affairs with top-tier prostitutes on some exotic island somewhere, laughing all of the way to the bank.
Of course, as a gay male the holiday doesn't matter much to me anyhow. I basically ignore it, the capitalists do not get my money, the capitalists sure as hell don't define what kind of a boyfriend I am, and at the most my partner and I might swap $2 cards. But the feminist part of my personality (which is rather pronounced, having seen so many examples of strong independent women growing up) is nonetheless irritated by this sickening, pathetic, disgusting display. Make no mistake about it, we are living in a world in which the "love" account seems to be chronically running on insufficient funds. But this horrible, horrible day has absolutely nothing to do with authentic love; it is the demonic spawn of culturally engrained misogyny and opportunistic capitalism, and it is so insidious because the people who seem to copiously benefit - women - are in fact witnessing their equality being violently attacked each and every time it occurs. And most of them don't even realize it.
With all of that being said, I guess I'll go find a $2 card, knowing that it's the most I'll receive in return. I guess that I'm just unloved!
When I tell people that I cannot stand Valentine's Day and that I basically ignore the event, their typical and invariable reaction is "How can you possibly be against love - love!!!!" This is, after all, a world ripped asunder by vitriol, bigotry, intolerance, loneliness, and all of those other rather nasty elements that can generally only be conquered by a nice dose of love.
Well, they're right. Love can never be criticized. Love is the greatest thing in the world. And guess what? Surprise of all surprises, I'm not against love! Imagine that! Which, logically extended to the full context of my argumentation, can only mean that I believe that Valentine's Day (at least the contemporary version of it) has absolutely nothing to do with love. And that is precisely how I feel. In fact, that idea is so important that I think that I will repeat it, bold and in big letters:
Valentine's Day, as currently celebrated in most of the Western world, has absolutely NOTHING to do with love. NOTHING at all to do with love.
And I really cannot emphasize "nothing at all" strongly enough. So if not love, what exactly are the cultural underpinnings of this pathetic event? There are two ideals at play here, the first being much more insidious and providing critically needed support for the second. The first underpinning is the absolute (yet subtle) cultural rejection of female equality; the second, which flows from this, is a capitalist exploitation of men dumb enough to buy into the myth that the women that they love are fundamentally "different" from and inferior to them. I'll discuss both of them briefly.
Valentine's Day, as practiced now, could not work in a society that truly believed that women and men are equals (or hey, even better yet, in a society that just ignored the whole bullshit gender binary, which is false, but I'll touch on that shortly.) This is partially because of the patent fact that Valentine's Day does not recognize that true love is mutual. Love is not a one-way street. While virtually every single woman in a relationship in America expects to receive something of value on Valentine's Day, empirical research data shows that only roughly five percent (5 out of 100!) of men receive anything at all from their female partners on Valentine's Day. Think about that. Year after year, the vast overwhelming majority - nearly all - of straight women in relationships are showered with gifts on Valentine's Day, and yet 95 out of 100 of them don't deem it necessary to return the favor. The point here, however, is not attaining a simple parity. To me, having the numbers at 100%/60% instead of 100%/5% would be no different at all. We need to ask why this pattern holds so firmly in order to realize why this "holiday" is a blatant attack on women, and this requires exploring the roots of the philosophy that treats women as inferior to men.
For as long as humans have existed on this Earth, women have been in an uphill battle to establish that they are more than the property of men. They've been remarkably unsuccessful in this battle for most of the history of humankind. What has served as the critical philosophical enabler for millennium of oppression and subjugation of women on the part of men is a single evil principle - "otherness" as de Beauvoir put it - that defines man (i.e., those humans with a penis) as the ideal manifestation of "humanity", with women representing an "other", somehow bastardized representation of the ideal. This "other" representation of the ideal has virtually always been seen as far inferior of the ideal, failing to attain the soaring heights of those of us endowed with an almighty penis. From this single principle flow all of the wrongs to which women have been subjected throughout history - being seen as nothing more than the property of their husbands, being denied basic human rights, accusations of moral and intellectual inferiority, and on and on and on.
Now, it only logically flows that because man is intelligent and mighty, while females are inferior, flawed and unintelligent, that man - men with penises! and morality as well - should protect women. This is the classical model; a woman is subservient to her man (in a religious context, husband) in all ways, and it is the duty of strong, intelligent man to protect this poor, pitiful little delicate rose who has fallen short of the ideal of humanity by design. Men are thus indefinitely charged with taking care of poor little women - of protecting them from their own incapability. This is sometimes seen as a selfish motive - if men don't protect women from killing themselves off due to their own incompetence and inability, how will "ideal" men further the species?
Let me be as clear as I possibly can: I emphatically, unequivocally, unapologetically reject that entire goddamned system of thinking. It repulses me in the same manner that I am repulsed by reading Nazi propaganda. EVERYTHING about it, every single idea from A to Z and every single logical inference in that school of thought, is totally and unwaveringly invalid to me. I don't find a single infinitesimal iota of truth in that entire way of viewing the world. Not one single redeeming quality. I am very hard-pressed to think of a worse view of reality. To me, that view of the world is every bit as crude, primordial, intellectually lacking, backwards, and downright immoral as the worldview of a hardcore racist or anti-Semite.
I strongly and categorically reject, first and foremost, the very notion of a gender binary. Countless scientific evidence has shown that there is more to reality than "male" and "female." The gender binary, in its remarkable ignorance, essentially sweeps transgendered and intersex people under the table, dismissing them as freaks of nature lower than humans when in fact they are full natural equals to the traditional "male" and "female" type models. Following from my rejection of the gender binary, I consequently and logically reject any and all notions of inequality or disparity between men and women. I recognize that there are obvious biological differences between females and males, but these biological differences do not establish one side as the "ideal", and the other side as, well, the "other." Both are complementary roles, and humankind could not be furthered in the absence of either. It is remarkably simple - men depend on women just as much as women depend on men. Period.
So arriving back at Valentine's Day, we can see how it plays off of the school of thinking that defines woman as the "weak other." Under this school of thought, women are unquestionably inferior to men. As a certain Facebook group bluntly puts it, "there are some things that men should always do for women", because, of course, those morons believe (whether they acknowledge it or not) that women are too stupid and incapable to do those things themselves. A woman is too incompetent, apparently, to open a door for herself, seat herself at a table, and buy herself a dozen roses at a local florist. Men - in their omnipotence, might, and charity - must do these things for the poor defenseless creature. Notice that love doesn't enter into the equation anywhere here, and nor does any sense of mutual obligation on the part of the woman. After all, why in the world would the woman possibly consider giving a gift to a man, since the man is already superior to her? It would be as senseless as a penniless pauper giving expensive French chocolate as a gift to Bill Gates. Love has nothing to do with their model. The man is obligated to put the woman on a pedestal because she inherently falls short - falling short is an intrinsic property of being a woman to these people- and thus the man does not give these things "out of love", but out of obligation to help support the "weak other" sex. Of course, for the woman there is no mutual obligation except to be subservient to her man - and that's because nature (or God) intended it that way, in that peculiar school of thought; woman, in fact, should be thankful that there is the mighty, omnipotent man to be subservient to because she would be too incapable to survive without his charitable and kind assistance. Valentine's Day, thus, could not function if people accepted that woman are, in fact, not inferior to men. That would sweep away the entire notion of obligation. The partners in a relationship would then be free to swap gifts and other tokens out of real, sincere love on their own volition - and it is highly unlikely that this would magically and randomly occur on just one (pre-determined!) day of the year.
I have always held up my mother in particular, and the strong women in my family in general, as the reason why I came to so firmly reject the "woman as other" viewpoint very early in life. My mother was inferior to no man on this planet. She was subservient to no man. She was the property of nobody. She needed no man to provide for her needs, whether they be physical or emotional. Her self-esteem and self-worth, as well as her own accomplishments, flowed from within her, not from within some charitable man. When she entered into relationships, it was as an equal and complementary partner - not as some mindless, subservient drone who needed a man to survive in this rough world. She would have viewed the notion of some man providing her with a gift out of "duty" as nothing short of the disgusting, ignorant, patronizing behavior that it is. And as I look throughout my family, I see no shortage of examples of independent, strong women who have outlived men and in fact, collectively, have accomplished more than the men in the family. They did not require the assistance of some man in affirming their humanity with some bogus, forced, duty-driven display of "affection" exactly once per year.
Of course, you can fully expect the capitalist to pounce wherever an opportunity is created, and this disgusting mess of a day created a prime, Class A opportunity for generating wealth. It has become a veritable arms race of sorts - after all, what "strong, powerful" man wants to only get his subservient, hapless woman a mere flower and card? Does he really care for her in that case? (translated, of course, to "Is his sense of duty and obligation really strong enough?") The ultimate winners of the Valentine's Day game are not women (they're in fact the biggest losers), but companies such as Hallmark. As one would expect, strong, penis-wielding men are willing to shell out enormous sums of money (not on their own volition, of course) just to show how much they care about those helpless, delicate little flowers that they happen to be dating (unless the woman has accepted her "God-given" role as a fully subservient twit, in which case they would be married. ) The capitalists who run these companies, meanwhile, are busy having raunchy affairs with top-tier prostitutes on some exotic island somewhere, laughing all of the way to the bank.
Of course, as a gay male the holiday doesn't matter much to me anyhow. I basically ignore it, the capitalists do not get my money, the capitalists sure as hell don't define what kind of a boyfriend I am, and at the most my partner and I might swap $2 cards. But the feminist part of my personality (which is rather pronounced, having seen so many examples of strong independent women growing up) is nonetheless irritated by this sickening, pathetic, disgusting display. Make no mistake about it, we are living in a world in which the "love" account seems to be chronically running on insufficient funds. But this horrible, horrible day has absolutely nothing to do with authentic love; it is the demonic spawn of culturally engrained misogyny and opportunistic capitalism, and it is so insidious because the people who seem to copiously benefit - women - are in fact witnessing their equality being violently attacked each and every time it occurs. And most of them don't even realize it.
With all of that being said, I guess I'll go find a $2 card, knowing that it's the most I'll receive in return. I guess that I'm just unloved!
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