A WISH
www.awish.nl is a platform that offers expecting parents the opportunity to make a wish for what they want their child to experience or learn in life. Depending on whether they already know the sex of their child or not, the site will lead them along a different path. All wishes are stored anonymously in an archive, which will reveal to visitors the differences in wishes from parents who do or do not know the sex of their child.
Brief*
Create a tool for discussion around the idea of gender and identity.
My Role
Research & Design
Photo of parent using the wish platform. By Iris Rijskamp.
This project arose from a feeling of frustration around gender reveal parties. Which perpetuate outdated gender stereotypes.
Gender reveal parties are about three things, excess, publicity and exclusion. But, we shouldn't blame people for perpetuating gendered stereotypes like pink or blue, wheels or heels? The real issue lies with targeting our unconscious gendered bias. The assumptions and connections we make when we assign someone's gender based on their sex.
Photoshopped Image. Original by: highlander411 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
A Wish offers the opportunity to see how gendered stereotypes can seep into our purest choices for a child.
This platform gives a moment to think about what you wish for your child to experience or learn in life. Before they are born. On the wish journey, you are asked if you know the sex of your child. This answer determines which path you take on the site. But, the secret is both paths are the same.
A Wish is a different way to celebrate your child. Not through excess, publicity and exclusion but with modesty, intimacy and inclusion. When making a wish, in the archive, it is saved for 7 years and then sent back to the wish maker to create a moment to share this wish with their child. Opening up discussion around identity and personal wishes.
The Wish archive is a place to reveal our unconscious gendered biases and provide people with an opportunity to reassess what they really wish for their child.
Yellow wishes are from parents who don't know their child's sex, orange wishes are from parents who do.
While this project aims to bring awareness to parents around the issue of unconscious gendered bias. It also works are a research tool and measure of how our 'wishes' for children may change over time and from the moment we discover their sex.
