Welcome to Breaking Down Patriarchy. I'm Amy McPhee all best. Just the other day, while I was scrolling on

social media, I saw a gender reveal party. The expecting couple was sitting on the grass,

each holding a cupcake, and on the count of three, both bit into their cupcakes, and then the

smiling mother excitedly revealed pink filling to the camera.

The father, however, visibly grimaced. In the video, he balls his hand into a fist and crushes

the rest of his cupcake and then throws it forcefully into the distance. He screams into a pillow

and then stomps away while

his wife just uncomfortably turns off the camera. Maybe you've seen a video like this before.

There are lots of them circulating on TikTok right now. Father's cursing and shouting, throwing

decorations, storming off at the site of pink. Meanwhile, other gender reveal videos can focus on injuries, on grand spectacles, and epic

fails, or on the heaps of pastel-colored litter left in public spaces.

And even when these parties go perfectly, as planned, some skeptics raise concerns that

gender reveals enforce patriarchal norms and might

even be damaging to queer and transgender communities.

Gender reveal parties have become a multimillion dollar industry, as well as a common

source of both controversy and clickable content.

So to help us make sense of this very complicated phenomenon, I am so grateful to be joined today

by the originator of the gender reveal party.

Jenna Carvinides, thank you so much for joining us, Jenna.

Thank you for having me.

I'm excited to be here so much.

This is such an interesting topic, so I'm really excited to dive into it.

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