Not everyone is a fan of gender reveal parties. They often raise questions about outdated stereotypes, and some argue that they reinforce the idea that gender is determined before birth.
While these types of events can lead to massive debates about gender, it's not often that they spark accusations of racism. But that's exactly what happened at a combined gender reveal party, thanks to a cake-cutting moment that didn't go quite as planned.
A woman has revealed how she was tasked with baking the cakes - one for her own boy, and another to announce her friend's girl. Her friend was horrified to discover a "muddy brown" filling, and immediately accused the baker of being racist.
"Was I unintentionally racist?" That's the question one woman is now asking herself...
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She was meant to bake a pink gender reveal cake for her friend but what she did instead has caused chaos
Image credits: Matilda Wormwood/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Regina Ferraz/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Liza Summer/Pexels (not the actual photo)
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She later admitted to being "a bit of an idiot" when choosing the cake
"A dumb mistake but not racist": Many found the whole drama to be ridiculous
Then there were those who called out the friend for being passive-aggressive
Some people questioned why the woman chose red velvet instead of plain pink
She later revealed that she'd met up with her friend and some interesting details were shared
Image credits: Liza Summer/Pexels (not the actual photo)
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Why the woman who first started the gender reveal party trend regrets her pink cake...
Gender reveal parties burst onto the scene in the 2000s and a blogger called Jenna Karvunidis has been credited with starting the trend.
In 2008, Karvundis threw a party while pregnant with her first child. She cut into a cake filled with pink icing, and symbolically announced to her guests that she’d be having a baby girl. Karvundis’ blog post about the event went viral, and soon, parents-to-be around the world were following suit.
Image credits: David Escala de Almeida/Pexels (not the actual photo)
But it didn’t take long for gender reveal parties to get out of hand. Some of the extravagant gatherings have made headlines for all the wrong reasons. One party sparked a 47,000-acre wildfire in Arizona. Another saw a grandmother lose her life after explosives were used.
Decades later, Karvunidis wishes she’d never started the trend. Not only because of the destruction some gender reveal parties have caused but also because the mother realizes that gender is not always determined before birth.
In a 2019 Facebook post, Karvundis asked, “Who cares what gender the baby is?” Her posts featured a family photo, which featured her daughter wearing a pale blue blazer and pants. “PLOT TWIST,” she wrote. “The world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!”
The mother revealed in a 2020 interview that her daughter Bianca’s pronouns are she/her. "But, she added, "You might be surprised how many girls might wind up in suits if they were allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted."
Many critics have spoken out about how problematic and harmful gender reveal parties can be.
“Wildfires aside, the main problem is that gender-reveal parties reinforce several ideas about gender, which are pretty bad for kids and for society in general,” says Dr. Meg-John Barker, a psychologist and author who specialises in the subject of gender. “Here are three main points: that gender is the most important thing we can know about a person; that we can know what gender somebody is going to be by knowing what their genitals are like; and that gender is binary, so they're either a boy or a girl.”
Many people found the couple's reaction to the cake quite bizarre and a bit extreme
