Friday, June 11, 2021

Gender reveal parties should stop (for a whole bunch of reasons)

The "gender reveal party", probably one of the daftest idea of the 2010s, needs to be abandoned and strongly discouraged.

Just this last week, a gender reveal party in Northern Alberta involving ballistics targets and fireworks went catastrophically wrong and caused a dangerous wildfire (similar to one last year in California that caused a huge wildfire resulting in the death of a firefighter, and one in Arizona that burned down 47,000 acres and caused over $8 million in damages). More than one person has died as a result of this ridiculous exercise in vanity.

Even Jenna Karvubidis, the woman usually "credited" with (unwittingly) starting the trend of gender reveal parties, has publicly stated that they have got out of hand and should be stopped. Her initial event was a very modest affair, but, as often happens where social media is involved, it has grown into a monster. Not only is it potentially dangerous, it reinforces binary gender stereotypes. 

And anyway, nobody else really cares whether your baby has a dick or not. Excepting possibly Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the social media circus that is the main beneficiary of these events.

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