Why Valentine's Day is a crock of shit. (And also Not Feminist.)

So the tagline promised Feminism on this website ..so here we are, my first attempt at writing about feminism. I am a scientist at heart, not a writer so I feel this will be very simple. Please be forgiving when you read!


Why Valentine's Day is a crock of shit. (And also Not Feminist.) 

Valentine's day is a crock of shit. I know this. You know this. We all know this. Why do we insist on it still being a thing? Someone just needs to call time on this abomination once and for all. No one actually enjoys it. No one looks forward to it. It needs to crawl under a rock and die slowly. 

Now you could say, "But Vix, haven't you just been dumped and isn't this just a bitchy post because you're bitter and single now?" 

And I would say to you, "This may be true, but I would still be angered by Valentine's day regardless." Here is why:

There are the obvious reasons as to why it's a crock of shit. There's the oft used complaint of, "It's a made up celebration, purely for the greeting's card industry/merchandise shops to make a quick buck." Very true. There is the also the other oft used and equally valid complaint of "You shouldn't just be showing you love your partner on one day, you should do it all the time." Also very true. But this goes deeper - 

It's just not very feminist. 

Reason 1. It turns "having a boyfriend" into a competition between women. I used to work in an office that was 90% women under 35 and Valentine's day was literally "Who can get the biggest bouquet of roses 'unexpectedly' (yeah right) sent to the office/sat on their desk when they walk in." It was vile. Same goes for Facebook/Twitter/social media. #luckygirl #loved #lookatmebeingbetterthanyou #myboyfriendsbetterthanyours. Urgh. Your relationship is not a competition. You do not need to compare it to other peoples. Just stop. 

Anything that turns women against each other = not feminist. Seriously, I have no truck with women bitching about other women, or trying to get one over each other. We need to stick together and celebrate each other, not tear each other down constantly. So Reason 1 that Valentine's day needs to go in the bin. 

Reason 2. It can make single people (most likely women) feel shit about the fact that they don't have a partner. This is Not Feminist because it fuels the notion that the only way for a woman to be fulfilled and happy is to have a boyfriend/husband, i.e. all there is in life is getting married and having babies and that is it and you should aim for nothing else and if you don't have these things you are a failure and if you don't even WANT these things you are a complete freak of nature ohmygod??? how can you not want children but that is our purpose?!?

Having a partner/being married/having kids is great, there's no shame or anything wrong in doing/wanting any of that, but being made to feel like a failure or outcast in society if you don't have one (or don't want one) is not cool. 

Reason 3. It's really fucking awkward for people in the early phases of relationships. Especially if you're definitely together but haven't said you love each other yet. This is a fricking minefield I tell you. Do you get a present? Just a card? Ignore it completely? Say I love you? What if they don't get me anything? What if I don't get anything and they get me something? What does it mean if we do something? Does that mean they're getting really serious? What if we don't do anything? Does that mean they're not getting serious? Could I have any more questions? Could I question this relationship any more? Maybe all these questions are actually having a negative impact which could be completely erased if this stupid non-holiday didn't actually exist? This isn't feminist because it's society making you question and second guess your own damn relationship for no reason, instead of just letting you, oh I don't know, get on with it, rather than measure it up to what society tells you it *should* be like, or what you *should* be doing. Bin. 

Reason 4. The poor saps (ie men) who are *supposed* to spend money on this bullshit. Like really? £20 on roses? You poor fuckers. And if you don't do anything when it's expected you get it in the neck, because you obviously "don't love her enough". (Because yes women, him not buying you crappy garage flowers on a specified day definitely means that he doesn't love you, and definitely doesn't mean it's just a bloke who's forgotten because they all forget cos that's how their brains just are...)  Like that's a rock and a hard place isn't it really.. so reason 4 is your friendly reminder that Patriarchy Hurts Everyone and Valentine's day is pretty shit for everyone. It's shit for women, it's shit for men, it's shit for single people, and it's shit for couples. 

Now, what shall I rant about next??

My love affair with The Zebra

The Zebra is another "repeat offender" costume of mine - I've now dressed up as it five times in various guises. It started off with a group Halloween costume - a herd of zebras (terrifying I know) because we saw some black and white knee high socks on a market stall.

About a year later I went on a group social where all 20 or so of us dressed as zebras in some guise. I wore a white strappy top with black gaffer tape stripes. Black shorts, a black and white stripey scarf tied round my waist to be a tail, and my trusty black and white socks (the only component that has lasted through all iterations of this costume!)

2007 Zebra night. 

2007. Cambridge Night club.

Next time was on my ski season in France, as a pair of zebras with a friend, on a "Noah's ark" themed night out.

2009. Added in cardboard ears. And about 2 stone. 

Next up: MALIA aka Best Holiday Ever (yes really). We had a fancy dress night. Chose zebras. Obvs. Added in zebra pants here (not seen), as well as one white heel and one black heel. There was a zebra themed bar there as well, cue lots of posed photos with stripey chairs/walls/poles etc

August 2010. Look how cool we are!!!

Next reiteration was a step up. I've been to quite a few Last Tuesday Society events (quirky events company in London that throws parties every couple of months) - this was The Animal Party. I took The Zebra to another level with facepaint:  (I changed the black skirt for black tight and just the zebra pants....) The paint took a good 2 and a half hours to do. White face paint is notoriously hard to get looking matte - it takes a good few layers, and it helps if you leave each one to dry (but that obviously takes more time). I spray painted my hair black and white to continue on the stripes that I painted onto my face (got this idea from the costumes from the Cats musical). 

Zebras gotta eat. This is in the BFI cafe on the Southbank. No one batted an eyelid 

Zebra or wall?

2012. Having a ball on the lightup dance floor at The Animal Party

Lastly: this weekend. I went to Rumpus, again a themed night that gets thrown every couple of months. The theme was "Revolution and Evolution" (which I actually think is really hard to do!) and we went with zebra/cheetah hybrid/mutant type things. I didn't want to/have time to go over the top with the face paint again, so I just went for half my face, with some subtle pink stripes to make it more "rave-y," as well as my fave new purple lipstick

Rumpus, Feb 2015

Barbies (and Ken) In Boxes

Every year my university puts on a night at the end of the RAG charity week called The Dental Beer Race (the dentists organise it). It's a pub crawl down a long road in East London and everyone goes in group fancy dress, with prizes for the "winners."

People really put A LOT of time and effort into it, and two years ago myself and my friends decided to go as "Barbies In Boxes."

2013. L-R Disco Barbie, 80s Barbie, Beach Ken, Sailor Barbie, Prom Queen Barbie

 Needless to say, we fucking won. So many people thought this was incredible (and it was tbh!)

The cardboard boxes were bought off Amazon, I believe they are "wardrobe" boxes? They were cut to size, painted pink, Barbie/Ken painted on, and the Mattel circle stuck on. We then tied them to our shoulders with string. 

Great thing with this is, you can go as any Barbie so the clothes you wear don't really matter. My sailor costume was bought off the internet. 

Have to say, the boxes got annoying, and some of the bars wouldn't let us in with them. By the time we got to the club at the end they got shoved in a corner and forgotten about. 

People must have thought we were mad. Definitely one of the *best* fancy dress costumes I've ever been involved with though!

Kill Bill

For me, the best fancy dress costumes are the ones that need no explanation. The ones that you instantly know what they are. Sure, your costume could be really clever but if you have to explain it every time someone asks "What have you come as then?" or even worse, "What ARE you?" then it loses impact I feel.


And so, to one of my all time favourite costumes: The Bride from Kill Bill. Now, I love the films anyway, but the Crazy 88 scene is now so iconic that you don't even have to have seen the film to recognise the yellow motorcycling/samurai sword getup that Uma Thurman sports at the end of the first film. It's instantly recognisable and I don't think I've got many "so who are you meant to be?" whist wearing it.


I first thought about this costume during my first year of university for a "Movie" themed night (2006 - so nearly a good ten years I've had this!!). The yellow top is from Miss Selfridge, yellow trousers are from H&M. I have to say I spent a long time searching for yellow trousers, and if I hadn't of found them I wouldn't have made this costume. I bought some black ribbon and sewed it down the sides. To complete I bought a plastic samurai sword from a joke shop and covered my neck in fake blood. At the time I thought "oh yeah I'm blonde this is fine," but actually looking back, LORD NO. I had really brown hair compared to now.

2006. Look how young I am! And browner hair!

Not that you should need it, but what it's meant to look like.

2 years later. More blonde. Better costume. 

2008. Thinking I was the bee's knees "DJ-ing"

I've worn it again on 3 different occasions, before then being given a Kill Bill group theme, and so I lent it to a friend and I decided to dress up as Gogo Yubari, the Japanese schoolgirl bodyguard instead. I actually borrowed most of the clothes for this costume so don't know where they're from. But you'd need a white shirt and red scarf, blue jacket, tartan miniskirt, white knee high socks, and a spiky ball on the end of a chain, which I made out of cardboard and tinfoil. Little detail: fake blood running out of one eye. Also obviously I'm a blonde white girl not Japanese, so this isn't really the best costume in the world. Probably should have worn a wig.

2012. 

What Gogo actually looks like

Speaking of which Group Kill Bill costumes are really quite easy, one person as The Bride (in yellow), one as Gogo, one as Elle Driver (either as a nurse, or simply a white shirt, cigarette and an eyepatch - EASY), one as Budd (cowboy hat), one as The Bride in a bloody wedding gown, then unlimited number of people as the Crazy 88 (suit, mask, sword).

I most recently wore the costume on a "Heroes and Villains" day in central London, where I reenacted the famous "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart" technique on The Incredible Hulk on the steps of St Paul's cathedral in front of a lot of unimpressed German teenagers. Cos why not!

Cruella DeVille

The first time I dressed up as Cruella DeVille was for a "Villaintine's" themed night at uni in 2006. Villaintine's Day is a clever (*errr*) pun on Valentine's Day, in case you missed that one.

Because it was so effective, and so easy I repeated it for Halloween 2011 and then again Halloween 2014. For Cruella any long black dress will do, this one is from New Look, and is knee-length in a wraparound style with quite a low neckline. I wear it often for black tie does in "normal life" as well.
The scarf around my shoulders is fake Dalmatian fur, which I probably bought in Cambridge market. Elbow high red (fake) velvet gloves are a little touch which I think push this from being an ok outfit into being a really good one. It's all in the details. The cigarette holder adds to this as well. You can get these from joke shops/fancy dress shops for pennies.

2006

The most fun bit of this costume is most definitely THE HAIR. I didn't want to just buy a wig for this I wanted crazy hair of my own. Buying cheap coloured hairspray is the way to go - but be careful with white hair spray. Black is fine, it'll always be really dark and you'll only need one can. White however - some sprays are really crap and barely give any colour change at all! My normal hair colour is blonde but even on my light hair one brand in particular just didn't work ("Smiffy's Let's Party" hairsprays). The one I used most recently was "Let's Party."

To get the "dragged through a hedge backwards Mad Woman" look you really have to backcomb like crazy. Just go for it, use the whole tin if you can. The colour acts like normal hairspray as well so you don't need any extra on top. It makes your hair go rock hard and also completely wrecks it, so you'll need a tonne of conditioner and about 3/4 hair washes to get it all out, but I think it's worth it. Just make sure you have a shower before you go to bed otherwise your sheets will be covered in black when you wake up.

With regards to makeup, you most definitely need bright red lips, dark eyebrows and even you're feeling brave bright blue eyeshadow (and you will look crazy).

If you want to extend this into a Group Costume, get your friends to dress up as Cruella's burglar minions: Horace and Jasper, or even recruit 101 people to dress up as Dalamatians!

2014