Emily Ratajkowski Announces Pregnancy in Personal Essay

There will not be a gender reveal party

Emily Ratajkowski
Emily Ratajkowski is expecting her first child.
Raymond Hall/GC Images/Getty Images

Emily Ratajkowski has announced her pregnancy, sharing the news in a personal essay penned for Vogue and published online Monday.

In the essay, which is accompanied by a short film directed by Lena Dunham, Ratajkowski announced she is expecting her first child with husband Sebastian Bear-McClard. The piece goes on to address issues of identity and gender, as well as Ratajkowski’s thoughts, hopes and anxieties about parenthood and raising a child amid an era of social unrest.

The model and activist also made it clear that she had no interest in “revealing” her child’s gender, preferring to resist traditional constructions of gender altogether. “We won’t know the gender until our child is 18,” wrote Ratajkowski, adding that her child will “let us know then.”

However, the model also lamented the fact that despite her best efforts to avoid subjecting her child to preconceived notions of gender, they will inevitably encounter traditional gender expectations and stereotypes anyway.

“I want to be a parent who allows my child to show themself to me,” she wrote. “And yet I realize that while I may hope my child can determine their own place in the world, they will, no matter what, be faced with the undeniable constraints and constructions of gender before they can speak or, hell, even be born.”

This isn’t the first time Ratajkowski has addressed questions of gender and identity in an essay. In 2019, the model penned an essay for Harper’s Bazaar questioning societal standards of femininity and beauty. In September, Ratajkowski wrote an essay for The Cut revealing her experience of alleged sexual assault. Ratajkowski is set to release a collection of essays titled, My Body in 2022.

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