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Food

Gender Reveal Cakes Need to Stop

A cake focused entirely on your unborn baby’s genitals. Of course.
Photo via Flickr user Jim

Ah, the two genders. Boy or girl. Pink or blue. Cowboy hat or tutu. Train or Doll. Mid-life crisis at 48 where you quit your job to become an EDM DJ in Torquay or earning 20.8 percent less than your male colleagues throughout your working life. These are the divides we create within society to decide whether a child should fail upwards or be forced to repeat themselves in meetings. And what better way to declare to the world this arbitrary assignment than a “gender reveal cake” that discloses the meaning you ascribe to your unborn baby’s genitals? Fun!

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This was the question pondered by Twitter users everywhere last night as the site reeled in horror at one of the weirdest, heteronormative phenomena of antenatal life. A cake, with blue or pink sweets inside, usually served at a baby shower to “reveal” the child’s gender to guests. Of course. Of course.

It all began when Twitter user Church Carlton tweeted pictures of a selection of strange gender reveal cakes, with the caption, “I don’t know what people think babies are.”

Cue an extremely legitimate response from Twitter users everywhere wondering a) why tho, and b) what do people think gender is?

Arguably, gender reveal celebrations have been a fucked-up concept for a while now, organised by everyone from the Kardashians to trigger-happy Americans, but that doesn’t make them any less weird. Not only does no one care about your baby’s gender, foot size, or affinity with Petit Filous, but a baked good is really not the one for sharing information about sex organs.

It’s a no from us.