Emily Ratajkowski Vows To Raise Child Gender Neutral
Image: Sebastian Bear-McCloud & Emily Ratajkowski
Actor turned model Emily Ratajkowski announced in an interview with Vogue Magazine last month that she and her Producer husband Sebastian Bear-McCloud would be raising their unborn child with “as few gender stereotypes as possible.”
Ratajkowski who gained notoriety for her appearance in Robin Thicke’s controversial Blurred Lines video clip announced her pregnancy on Instagram earlier this year.
In her interview with Vogue, Ratajkowski discussed the immense pressures she and her husband felt around the idea of throwing a gender reveal party which have been gain popularity in the United States. It was then that she realised the negative impacts placing gender stereotypes on an unborn child could have on that child in later years.
In speaking with Vogue, Ratajkowski shared the moments she and her husband began asking themselves, “who will this [baby] be” and “What kind of parents will it make us?” In asking these questions Ratajkowski and her Husband came to the decision of raising their child gender neutral until such a time their child could tell them which gender it would present when entering adulthood.
In recent years Ratajkowski has used her platform as a model in the public eye to champion women’s health rights, in particular Planned Parenthood. Ratajkowski who proclaims herself a feminist has received backlash for her modern take on sexual expression and parenthood. English morning show host Piers Morgan dubbed her feminists beliefs as “Pseudo-feminist Gibberish.” Meanwhile, in America Ratajkowski has been praised for her positive approaches to sex and female sexuality by the likes of Cosmopolitan Magazine’s Nikki Kinstlinger and Marie Claire’s Georgia Simmons.
In 2016 Ratajkowski gained further media attention for her brand of sex positive feminism when she spoke at a Bernie Sanders rally on the eve of the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, a speech which she backed up earlier this year as a public Bernie Sanders supporter.
Ratajkowski’s announcement comes as more and more parents choose to avoid stereotyping their children into their assigned gender at birth. Parents face a barrage of gendered barriers when raising a child, from gendered toys to gendered colours. With gender neutral parenting being a relatively new concept, we are yet to see whether such an ideology will grow a new generation of gender inclusive children.
Any parents who seeks to make this world more inclusive to diversity should be commended for their efforts. Only time will show how gender neutral parenting will play out.
