When We Talk About Being Kind, Why Don’t We Extend That Courtesy To Katie Price?

Yesterday it was reported thatKatie Price was rushed to hospital after allegedly being attacked. Essex Police said it was called by the ambulance service in the early hours of the morning, and a 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assault. The 32-year-old man has now been released on police bail. The Sun is reporting that Price was treated for 'a jaw fracture and split eye’.

Whatever happens next, there’s nothing funny about this story, yet people have decided to use it as an excuse to have a(nother) pop at Price - criticising her plastic surgery, commenting that she’d ‘do anything to get publicity’ (the implication presumably being that she’s making the story up for the headlines).

What is it about a scenario in which a woman has clearly been injured that makes people think she’s also deserves an online pile on, on the same day? And what is it about Katie Price that makes people think she’s less deserving of our kindness, empathy and sympathy than other people?

We talk about #BeKind now as though it’s the mantra by which we all strive to live our lives. You only need to look at the comments around Love Island{ =nofollow}on Twitter to know that this is patiently untrue. But even in a world where cruel trolling has become the norm, our treatment of women like Katie Price is beyond the pale. It’s often working class women who have made a great deal of money for themselves, and then spent it ostentatiously, who have multiple children, sometimes with multiple partners and are overt about their sexuality, their choices to have plastic surgery or their desire to slow down the ageing process.

None of these things are even close to a crime, yet the way in which we revel in Price’s every misfortune, from her money woes, to her health issues, to her choice of man, is classist, sexist and very, very unkind.

I can’t be the only person whose Instagram feed is awash with memes reminding me to be kind and choose love at the moment. But if you can’t extend that courtesy to a woman you don’t particularly like, at her worst, then you’ve got a long way to go.

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READ MORE: Whether Or Not Katie Price Is Pregnant, Sexist Comments About Her Children Having Multiple Fathers Are Not Acceptable