Esqueda-Castro 1

Jonathan Esqueda-Castro
Professor Granillo
English 101
18 September 2019
RIP to the Blue Wheels and Pink Heels

Cake in most cultures is used to celebrate a certain moment or achievement in someone’s

life. Something interesting about these cakes is that they have hidden messages due to the signs

placed on them. By analyzing said signs one can see a message that is placed underneath the

design. The cake that will be analyzed is supposed to mirror another cake that was titled “Wheels

or Heels” which was meant to be a gender reveal. The cake titled “It’s Alive” mirrors a gender

reveal cake which was meant to separate gender roles, by dividing these two groups it shows

how the patriarchy can dominate lives and ideologies even from a young age. This cake removes

the idea of gender by placing inclusive words and by laying to rest old ideologies. By stopping

this patriarchal thinking there are less expectations of what the child should be and more room to

let the child be a child.

The cake that is being talked about is not considered a gender reveal cake but an

expecting cake, this is because there are no set gender or indication towards those genders. The

cake has one base color of brown with the cake cut into the shape of a coffin. The cake has black

and white writing, one phrase saying, “it’s alive” and another saying “RIP”. Right below “RIP”

are two figures one is meant to be a wheel and the other heel, this is supposed to correlate back

to the previous cake of Wheels or Heels. This is a anti gender reveal cake in the shape of a coffin

with the words RIP written on it and it shows strength in its message against the patriarchy. This

cake stands up against the patriarchy in how it lays gender ideas to rest.
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By placing both the wheels and heels onto a coffin it figuratively and literally lays those

ideas to rest. It represents the ideas of the first cake being that gender is clear cut; men are the

providers and women are meant to be submissive/dependent. It gets rid of the patriarchal ideas of

gender and traditional gender roles. Due to the fact that the patriarchy constantly says that gender

is clear cut and direct it causes conflict and confusion when people don’t fit into those traditional

gender roles. By placing those ideas of wheels or heels onto children from a young age it shows

how the patriarchy can have a control on social constructionism. However, when getting rid of

gender itself on this cake it shows how this cake goes against the patriarchy.

The cake has “It’s Alive” written on the top of the cake to go against the “Wheels or

Heels”. It removes the chance of separating or comparing genders due to the fact that it has no

set gender placed as a visual. By having the cake say “It’s” it becomes more inclusive and less

offensive. Removing both of those objects it causes less expectation on the child regardless of

their gender. The signs presented on the other cake give clear depiction as to what that cake can

really mean in retrospect to our society and how this one can counter act it. The wheels and blue

lettering are placed to represent the men; while the heels and pink lettering is there for the

women. The wheels are not a good signifier because it assumes that only men can have a “real”

career and can enjoy such luxurious objects such as cars. While what is being used to represent

women heels, associated with fashion, elegance, and the idea that women are meant to hold a

certain level of beauty. Due to the fact that there are expectations already placed due to societal

beliefs of how men should behave and how women should be treated it shows how the patriarchy

has a control on most American thought process.

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What this new cake does is that it establishes a new form of thinking while putting away

such backwards thoughts. By getting rid of both the wheels and the heels it shows how the cake

fights the patriarchy in both ways. From the female perspective it gets rid of the idea of a

patriarchal woman. The patriarchal woman can be seen doing chores, taking care of the children,

being submissive due to the male gaze and listening to whatever the man thinks of. In the article.

“Resisting the Male Gaze” Dianne Ponteroto, explains how women have been marked as

pleasure items for the male eyes, and that through the male gaze it has disabled women to live

within society at the same level or lower than men. The belief that men are superior to women

has been used, to justify and maintain the male monopoly of positions of economic, political, and

social power to keep women powerless by denying them the educational and occupational means

of acquiring economic, political, and social power. This shows how the patriarchy affects

woman, but it also shows how this cake tries to rethink these backwards ideas by establishing a

gender-neutral cake it gives the child a neutral playing field to grow and develop freely.

While women do have the worst end of the patriarchal mindset men still get affected just

as much. Since the idea of wheels is placed onto men it establishes this idea of ruggedness and

strength. In the eyes of the patriarchy men are not supposed to cry because crying is considered a

sign of weakness, a sign that one has been overpowered by one’s emotions. For similar reasons,

it is considered unmanly for men to show fear or pain or to express their sympathy for other men.

This is a sign of weakness to the patriarchy and shouldn’t be allowed. For the patriarchy it is

preferred to enforce the male gaze, misogynistic mindset, traditional gender roles, however with

this cake it shows that the traditional gender roles aren’t necessary at all. The patriarchy attempts

to hinder the growth that Americans make to counteract it by living in things that are meant to be

innocent.
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A gender reveal party is party is meant to be innocent and playful, however due to the

intent behind these parties it becomes wrong to categorizes these children and causes a divide.

This divide starts when the genders become separated and placed into classes, blue or pink.

Causing an immediate divide within the child subconscious and the own parents subconscious,

this forces them to repress the child from a young age to abide to the American norms that

parents are forced into. This idea is what makes America seem regressive because this thinking is

what dominates many parents’ mindsets. However, if more cakes were as inclusive as the one

being talked about it can have a different perspective for the parent regarding their children. “It

allows adults to recuperate what they have learned from their own gendered constructions,

inscribing expectations and assumptions onto the unwritten body of the unborn and propelling

these ideals into the digital, social, public world.” (Giesler)

Cake is used to celebrate a certain moment or achievement in someone’s life. The cake

that nalyzed is supposed to mirror another cake that was titled “Wheels or Heels” which was

meant to be a gender reveal. The cake titled “It’s Alive” mirrors a gender reveal cake which was

meant to separate gender roles, by dividing these two groups it shows how the patriarchy can

dominate lives and ideologies even from a young age. This cake removes the idea of gender by

placing inclusive words and by laying to rest old ideologies. By stopping this patriarchal thinking

there are less expectations of what the child should be and more room to let the child be a child.

By removing gender it allows freedom from the patriarchy for both parents and children.
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Works Cited
Sweet Mary’s. Wheels or Heels. Pinterest, 1, 2018
Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Trans. Catherine Porter. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1985.

Ponterotto, Diane. “Resisting the Male Gaze: Feminist Responses to the ‘Normatization’ of the

Female Body in Western Culture.” Journal Of International Women's Study, Jan. 2016,

pp.133–151., doi:BridgeWater State University.

Gieseler, Carly. “Gender-Reveal Parties: Performing Community Identity in Pink and Blue.”

Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 27, no. 6, Aug. 2018, pp. 661–671. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/09589236.2017.1287066.