Yesterday, Katie Price posted a picture on Instagram that many took to be a pregnancy announcement. Leaning back in her car holding her stomach, Katie captioned the picture ‘Happy and healthy, it’s the best feeling ever I thank Carl Woods for being part of me.’
While it’s not exactly Katie’s style to announce a pregnancy on Instagram – not when she could absolutely get a magazine cover out of it - many of her fans sent their congratulations anyway. However, she’s yet to confirm their speculation, posting four pictures since with no mention of a pregnancy and one of her friends joking in the comments that she’s just holding her belly that way because she had a big takeaway.
Now, we’re not here to debate whether or not Katie is pregnant – but what we are here to analyse is the reaction to this post regardless. With many assuming she is in fact with child, the judgement has already began pouring in from countless people. ‘Wow, six kids, four dads,’ one person commented with an emoji that expresses disappointment and judgement.
‘She can’t even look after the children she has now, how many different dads is that?’ another added in a reply to The Sun sharing the story. Countless judgemental comments later, it’s clear Katie has fallen foul to a sexist brigade of ‘4x4’ comments. Because, if Katie were to be pregnant, her children would have four different dads.
Katie had Harvey, 18, with Dwight York, then Junior, 15, and Princess, 13, with ex-husband Peter Andre while Jett, 7, and Bunny, 6, were fathered by former spouse Kieran Hayler. This would then be her sixth child, with new partner Carl Woods.
We shouldn’t be surprised by the reaction really, given just how many sexist trolls there are online – making social media an increasingly dangerous place for women in the UK, according to research by Amnesty International. But still, it’s always disappointing to see the same double-standards churned out for women when men can father a harem of children to absolutely no eyebrows raised.
Mick Jagger, for example, has eight children with five women – has that ever sullied his reputation? Jude Law has six children to four different women, Rod Stewart eight to five women, Eddie Murphy eight to four women and Mike Tyson seven to three women. Our own Prime Minister is even reported to have six children to three different women. Then there’s Sean Combs (P. Diddy) who has five children to three women and Liam Gallagher who has three children to three women. How many of these men have you ever even heard of having so many children at all, let alone to different mothers?
Managing to co-parent with multiple people should be something we commend her for.
As is typical, we hold women to different standards – particularly those like Katie who by virtue of her profession has become a frequent target for misogynistic attacks. But why does having multiple children to different fathers make you any less of a good mother? If anything, managing to co-parent with so many different people should be something we commend her for.
Regardless of your opinions of Katie Price, when talking about any woman online it’s important to remember that your comments, tweets and posts are received very loudly by others. The celebrity you’re trolling might not see the comments, but the other people – and women - in your life definitely will. By commenting sexist attacks on women, it perpetuates a culture where our behaviours and bodies are further policed by other people.
If Katie is pregnant, and that’s a big if, we should be supporting her choices, not shaming her. Let’s not turn something precious into another excuse to berate women for nothing but living their lives as they want.
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