A U.K. mom-to-be named Ruth Abbott has captured the internet’s attention by staging a special gender reveal photo shoot with a surprising twist: Her goal was to turn the trend on its head and remind us all that gender is merely a societal construct. The expectant mom posted the funny “non-gender reveal” photos on Facebook, where they’ve started an important conversation about what gender reveals truly mean and how we celebrate new babies.
“Look, I get it,” Abbott writes on Facebook. “Other than asking when I am due, there isn’t much you can say to a pregnant person. Polite small talk is normal, and we all know everyone loves a good party. However, can we all take a step back and agree that, when you think about it, having big color-coded parties to celebrate an unborn baby’s genitals is just, well, a bit weird really?”
“Do you know what you’re having?”… Look I get it, other than asking when I am due there isn’t much you can say to a…
Posted by Ruth Abbott on Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Abbott points out that when people have gender reveal parties with themes like “guns or glitter” or “tiaras or trucks,” what they’re really saying is “penis or vagina.” And while it’s perfectly normal to be excited to learn more about your unborn baby, their sex isn’t necessarily indicative of who they are.
To challenge the trend, Abbott posed for photographer Claire Legg in images that show her opening a box that says “penis or vulva” only to find a black balloon covered in question marks.
She celebrates with cake, balloons and confetti. Later in the series, she poses with foil letter balloons that spell out “gender is a construct.”
Abbott, who is eight months pregnant, tells Care.com the idea for the shoot came about long before she was expecting. She says she used to joke with friends about how she never fit into girly stereotypes as a child and how her own gender reveal party would likely just be “a giant banner saying, ‘Gender is a construct.’”
She didn’t actually intend to go through with the idea, but being pregnant during a global pandemic changed her mind. “COVID-19 and shielding [a U.K. term for physical distancing] meant that I didn’t get to tell my parents, siblings or friends in person, and that hurt more than expected,” she explains. “No excited grandparents feeling my belly or shopping for ridiculously expensive outfits with friends, or any of the normal anticipatory events. I wanted to do something to celebrate and spread the joy I felt, but also something that represented me and how I want to raise my child.”
Abbott never imagined that her silly, celebratory photo shoot would go viral, but in just over a week, her photos have been shared more than 7,000 times. The images have resonated with other parents who feel confusion about the emphasis society places on a baby’s sex, and the response to her photos has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Just…thank you! I’m so over the reveals,” one commenter writes. “It’s really more to just say whether a penis was allegedly seen on ultrasound or not … Just why do we have to do it?”
But a few commenters defend the trend, saying it’s more about celebrating the baby’s life than trying to force the baby into rigid gender roles. “It’s more than just celebrating their genitals,” one person writes. “It’s celebrating who they are and will become as a person!”
Abbott says her photo shoot concept was not intended as a judgment of anyone’s choices. “Smarter people than me have spoken out about gender reveal parties, and if you had one and it brought you some joy, especially during lockdown, that’s fine,” she writes.
Still, she’s thrilled by the supportive responses she’s gotten, and she hopes her photos inspire people to give their children greater freedom to be who they are.
“We know we need to model kindness and manners, but we don’t think about how much children learn about who they are and what society expects from them by watching us with issues around gender,” she explains. “Our language and actions matter, so if we say ‘dance is for everyone’ but then constantly use ‘ballet or balls’ in gender reveals to mean ‘girls or boys,’ we’re giving the message to little boys that dancing is really ‘a girl thing.’”
Though gender reveal parties are a common and accepted pregnancy celebration these days, even Jenna Karvunidis, the trailblazer of the trend, has spoken out against the way reveals promote gender stereotypes. In a 2019 Facebook post, she wrote, “I’ve felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally, guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby. Who cares what gender the baby is?”
Abbott says there are so many ways to celebrate the birth of a child: book parties, nursery decorating parties or even just “big, glorious, random celebrations of new life.” And whether parents host a gender reveal party or decide to do something else, Abbott simply wants every child to be treated with acceptance and love.
“Every child has the right to find out what they love and who they are without feeling certain things are not for them because of the body they were born in,” she says. “And we as adults can help make the world as big and free and exciting as possible for them.”
