.jpg?ar=16%3A9&fit=crop&crop=top&auto=format&w=1440&q=80)
This week, Katie Price announced her engagement car dealer Carl Woods after 10 months together. Posting the announcement on Instagram, she was flooded with support from fans and celebrities alike celebrating the news. But of course, as always seems to be the case with women, she received tons of trolling and judgement too.
Why? Because this will be the eight time she’s been engaged and apparently, that’s something to judge her about. Immediately, social media was awash with rude comments about the number of men she’s said ‘yes’ to, with one person commenting on the picture ‘you say yes to everyone.’
The tabloids made a splash of it too, with the Daily Mail headline reading ‘Katie Price, 42, gets ENGAGED for the EIGHTH time after boyfriend Carl Woods, 32, proposes’ and naturally, as is the nature of the toxic wasteland that is the Daily Mail comment section, the replies were filled with judgement.
In fact, when you search for Katie Price on Google Trends, ‘Katie Price engagements’ and ‘how many times has Katie Price been engaged’ are breakout search terms for the star – meaning everyone is Googling to find out the number, presumably so they too can crack a few rude jokes or vile comments about her.
But let’s get one thing straight: making jokes about how many times Katie Price has been engaged are decidedly unfunny. Particularly because they’re underlined by a particular brand of sexism that men are never subject to.
Do you even know how many times some of the most celebrated male celebrities have been engaged?
Do you even know how many times some of the most celebrated male celebrities have been engaged? Most of us could barely name one, and yet there are so many that have ‘said yes’ (or, ‘asked if it’s yes’ since we’re embarking down patriarchy path here anyway) to scores of people.
Larry King, for example, has been engaged eight times as has Mickey Rooney. Richard Pryor and Jerry Lee Lewis have been engaged seven times. Tony Curtis, Billy Bob Thornton, Stan Laurel and Rex Harrison have been engaged six times. You see the point I’m making.
For all of these men, when they get engaged multiple times it’s either barely commented on or they’re ‘hopeless romantics’ we’re meant to swoon for. And yet for women, being engaged a lot makes you someone ‘easy’ and ‘desperate’, subject to jokes about how ‘everyone gets a turn at some point’ as if we’re valued on the number of men we fall in love with.
The wildest part about this particular type of slut-shaming is that engagements are commitments of monogamy. So if we sleep around a lot, testing the waters before we finally choose the ‘right one’, we’re sluts – and yet if we commit to every ‘one’, having multiple exclusive relationships hoping to marry each person, we’re still sluts.
What are we meant to do then? Marry one person and even when you grow apart, or come to realise you’re no longer compatible, just stay in an unhappy marriage or relationship for fear of being slut-shamed? When you think about it like that, what Katie’s actually doing is brave. She’s demonstrating a carelessness for sexism she receives on a daily basis that is admirable, proudly celebrating every engagement regardless of what people think.
She’s showcasing that actually, being fearless enough to love that openly and deeply that you make a real legal commitment to someone regardless of your history with men is something we should show off, not hide away because misogynistic trolls online tell you to. Who wouldn’t love to be that resilient, to be able to experience multiple relationships and the pain that comes with losing them, but still know you’ll be fine, get back up and be open to loving someone just as strongly again?
Truthfully, we should be giving Katie a round of applause, not subjecting her to lame jokes that further ingrain sexism into our society. She might not see your tweets, but the women in your life certainly will - and they'll feel the shame and stigma that comes along with it.
Read More:
Maybe Katie Price Has The Right Idea - Should We Charge Our Exes Damages?