By Danielle Bettendorf, Living and Arts Editor
With mid-February around the corner next week, everyone can’t wait for the next big event to come around. I know I’m excited – to get points taken off my license, that is.
Old speeding tickets aside, Valentine’s Day is coming up and I am delighted to see all celebrations of love, both romantic and platonic.
While, like everyone else, I’ve had my edgy phases and enough single jokes to last a lifetime, I’m at a point in my life where I really appreciate Valentine’s Day – and I think you should too.
The main complaint against Valentine’s Day is that it’s too commercialized – but isn’t every holiday?
You can’t talk about all the shopping done for significant others while ignoring the mass hordes of people going out on Black Friday.
In the same vein, it’s not like Valentine’s Day cards are the only ones you can find at the store: you can get Christmas cards, Get Better Soon cards, Anniversary cards and pretty much anything you can think of.
I agree that the celebration of love shouldn’t be so tied to capitalism, but that goes for every situation.
Valentine’s Day has lots of issues with gender roles, but refusing to change the way you act is on yourself. It’s like when Columbus Day rolls around – no one is actually celebrating Christopher Columbus being a murder. The same for Thanksgiving – if you’re celebrating white colonization, you’re not going to be invited to dinner.
The ability to make holidays what they mean to you is a big part of why so many traditions have survived to today. I think that goes for everything – but especially for a holiday that’s extremely feminized and typically marketed towards women.
In differing-sex couples, advertising makes it obvious that women should want and men should provide. Couples should definitely not fall into the traps the holiday can provide, but it’s not as easy as telling an entire society to stop playing into toxic gender ideas that have plagued humanity for centuries.
All in all, I like Valentine’s Day because I like love – whether you celebrate the typical kind or if “Parks and Recreation”’s Galentine’s Day is more your style.
I’ve always loved holidays because they’re something to celebrate – something different from the average day. None of them are without their flaws, but I’d rather have more good in this world than less, just because of differing opinions. Whether you call it Valentine’s Day, Singles’ Awareness Day or Galentine’s Day, I hope you’re having a good time.
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