Valentine’s Day: Male vs Female

valentinesI thought since this blog would come up on February 14, I would find some nice Valentine’s Day article in the student newspapers. Did not expect it to be such a problem! Such a difference when I looked through the student newspapers of Mercy College of Detroit and the University of Detroit. The predominately female Mercy College paper always seemed to have a Valentine’s related item, but not true for the UD student newspaper. For example in 1975, Mercy had this nice big editorial type cartoon  for its Valentine’s Day issue. vnvalentine-4The same year the February 14th issue of Varsity News had at best, a couple of advertisements for diamond rings. Not a single mention about it being Valentine’s Day.  Such an obvious gender difference is hard to miss and it was not an isolated incident for just that year.

Times have changed-at least the current Varsity News has an article that has combined Valentine’s Day with Black History month. There is an item about a program being presented on Valentine’s Day by Roy Finkenbine, director of the Black Abolitionist Archives, on love stories of slaves. The more current Varsity News can be found here: http://thevarsitynews.org/

You can check it out the older issues of both student newspapers on the Special Collections page.

 

 

Pat Higo, Archives and Special Collections Librarian