10,000 acres of land on fire. Over 1000 firefighters at the scene. This may sound like the result of a natural catastrophe or a terrorist attack, but the disastrous El Dorado fire was actually caused by a gender reveal. A family in California used a pyrotechnic device to reveal their baby’s gender. It was supposed to release coloured smoke, but instead it destroyed six homes. Many will say that this instance is not representative of gender reveals as a whole. However, destruction like this has happened several times before.

For decades there has been a strong movement growing in Europe to ban women from wearing headscarves, niqabs, and burqas, labelling them as symbols of female oppression and threats to security. Far-right nationals have gone as far as saying that the wearing of these garments is not a causal, personal choice but part of a wider attempt by political Islamism to gain support and ‘win recruits’.