This disparity was highlighted when Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle last week went public with an opinion piece in the New York Times about the miscarriage she suffered in July.
The response on social media was largely scathing. People laughed at her pain, called her an attention-seeker, told her lots of women suffer from miscarriages and she should get over it, and said her actions were nothing more than a publicity stunt after claiming she and husband Prince Harry broke from the royal family in search of more privacy.
It was a far cry from the response model Chrissy Teigen received last month when she posted intimate photos of her and singer John Legend's son Jack on Instagram after she had a miscarriage.
She too received backlash but the overwhelming majority described her as brave for destigmatising miscarriages, said her frank and real post would help others and sent their love during the couple's hard time.
Sure, the mediums through which Teigen and Markle chose to share their stories were different and their wording varied but the sentiment was the same.
Markle's opinion piece was raw and heartbreaking. It was the words of a woman, a mother, a feminist, an advocate. She pleaded for people to reach out to others and ask if they're doing okay.
So why did it elicit such a hateful tirade from trolls?
Sexism and internalised misogyny has a role to play and explains why the same subject is treated differently depending on who delivers it.
And perhaps the timing of the piece - during the couple's ongoing privacy case against the Mail on Sunday - didn't help either.
But the saddest fact of it all is Markle's key message of support to other women stigmatised by miscarriage has been overshadowed by nastiness and unsavoury comments about her motivations.
The abuse Markle has unwarrantedly received does nothing but prove her point: we need to be kinder to one another.
