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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Woman's Hour: What happened this morning?

399 replies

NonCisWoman · 06/01/2021 13:45

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9117995/Actress-refuses-appear-Womans-Hour-accusing-host-Emma-Barnett-degrading-comments.html

An actress refused to appear on Woman's Hour this morning after accusing host Emma Barnett of making 'degrading and vile' comments about her.

Kelechi Okafor was set to talk on the BBC Radio 4 show to discuss the #MeToo movement with new presenter Emma Barnett.

But as the programme was live on air, the Nigerian-British actress revealed she had come off the show, writing: 'Because what I've just had to witness is absolutely degrading and vile.'

Posting a video to Instagram, she said: 'I won't be going on Woman's Hour now. The host didn't realise her mic was on as she was talking s* about me to the producers.'

Shock
OP posts:
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6
Molesmokes · 10/01/2021 14:04

Except that didn’t happen. There is an ambiguous statement in a court report that that word “whores” was used in email correspondence between EB and her father.

What is NOT known:

  • which of them used the word
  • in what context

As has been pointed out, it could be that EB said to her father, “Don’t call them whores!”

We just don’t know.

AuntyPasta · 10/01/2021 14:28

’from Barnett to her father about “your whores” were read out in court’

(The Times)

Also, emails. Plural.

Floisme · 10/01/2021 14:55

I've flip flopped all over the place on this, as my posts will attest, but I think that, if you have to resort to policing personal conversations to make your case then you probably haven't got much of a case.

Molesmokes · 10/01/2021 15:07

@AuntyPasta

’from Barnett to her father about “your whores” were read out in court’

(The Times)

Also, emails. Plural.

That is the first mention of emails (plural) being read out in court and that it was EB who used the word.

(I’ve searched all pages of this thread in case I missed something earlier.)

Have you got a link to the article in The Times, by any chance?

PotholeParadies · 10/01/2021 17:00

I can't read it.

Nevertheless, whatever was said, I am uncomfortable with the assumption that what a 23 year old said to her father defines her opinions for life. It is not unusual for women to become more feminist as they age.

I was chanting 'sex work is work' and congratulating myself on not adding to the stigmatisation of it at that age. I had a Damascene moment at 25, when I saw another SWIW chanter share a vile joke about prostituted women, and then mumsnet radicalised me further.

PotholeParadies · 10/01/2021 17:06

Even with KO's podcast, I'd be quite willing to believe that she now thought quite differently about the matter, after ten years!

nancywhisky · 10/01/2021 17:07

From KO's tweet after she decided not to participate in Women's Hour the need for me on today’s show was to offer balance to these wayward women

wayward women? Really? seems a bit of an off phrase to use, or is it just me?

OldCrone · 10/01/2021 17:27

@PotholeParadies

I can't read it.

Nevertheless, whatever was said, I am uncomfortable with the assumption that what a 23 year old said to her father defines her opinions for life. It is not unusual for women to become more feminist as they age.

I was chanting 'sex work is work' and congratulating myself on not adding to the stigmatisation of it at that age. I had a Damascene moment at 25, when I saw another SWIW chanter share a vile joke about prostituted women, and then mumsnet radicalised me further.

This is the relevant part from the article.

What the book doesn’t mention — but she has written about in the past — is the shattering disgrace of her father’s three-year jail sentence. Behind the respectable facade of his property business, he had been secretly operating a chain of brothels across Manchester, profiting a reported £5m before his conviction when Barnett was 23. Her mother received a suspended sentence for money laundering, and emails from Barnett to her father about “your whores” were read out in court, so of course I’m dying to ask what she knew before the scandal broke.

“It was a very painful chapter of my life, and I wrote about it,” she says stiffly. “I wanted to say what I wanted to say and move on.” But her articles left so many questions unanswered, I point out. “But that’s not necessarily why I wrote it. I wrote it to talk about how it affected me, I didn’t write it to tell someone else’s story because that’s not my story to tell. There are also rights to an element of privacy, and in the period in question I was a child. I am in the public eye now, but I don’t think this is a line of questioning that’s necessary, fair or right.”

Cailleach1 · 10/01/2021 20:20

Again, that is paraphrasing and a quote from Decca Aitkenhead. Had Decca Aitkenhead seen the emails?

KO has a perfect chance to go on and say that referring to Jewish people in the manner she allegedly did and peddling tropes about them and pounds of flesh etc was ignorant and bigoted.

Two things can be true at the same time. If they are both true. However, all this kicked off because of KO's alleged anti-semitic statements being discussed by WH, and KO calling the discussion (or the way it was being discussed?) vile and degrading. I would like to think she thinks anti-semitism is vile and degrading but WH/EB said KO just denied having written or said them. So, denied them, not retracted them.

Aren't copies of her remarks on record? If there are receipts, how on earth would she damage her credibility any more by just lying and saying she never wrote them?

Cailleach1 · 10/01/2021 20:34

Unless WH are lying when they say KO denied the allegations? Would that not be a very damaging thing for them to do?

PotholeParadies · 11/01/2021 01:29

OldCrone Much obliged to you for the excerpt! Very helpful.

Doesn't seem like a strong case against EB, though.

Molesmokes · 11/01/2021 03:11

Thanks for the link nauticant

I think the whole “whores” thing is a red herring but I was interested to know if there was evidence of what was actually said.

The mention in the article in The Times is slightly different to what seems to be the earliest report in the Manchester Evening News and there are other slight variations in other, later articles. So, not conclusive.

This really is a diversion from the real issue, ie. the vague complaint made by KO. “Vague” because nobody seems to have stated what was actually said.

Anyway, I was intrigued enough to see if I could find anything more definitive.

The main significance of the “whore emails” is not who used the word but whether the emails are evidence that EB was aware of her father operating brothels when she was in her late teens/early twenties and might therefore be considered complicit or condoning of his actions.

There are people online suggesting that as a 14 year old she should have been aware of the true nature of her father’s business and was therefore partly responsible for sex trafficking as a child! Nice, offload some of the sins of the father directly onto his 14 year old daughter 🙄

However, the “whore emails” seem to disprove that she was aware at all until well after her father was charged and when she was away at University. Some people are suggesting she would have taken copies of the Manchester local newspaper when she was away at University so would have known earlier. Yeah, right, totally likely. Typical student behaviour.

Trawling through the comments on articles it is impossible to miss that a lot of people really, really want to find a way to implicate her. In between criticising her for being too pretty, too clever, too blonde, too blunt, too Tory, too Labour, etc. etc.

The clearest refutation of the significance of the “whore emails” in terms of prior knowledge is in a correction published by Craig Murray, updating an earlier hit-piece of his about EB.

Murray does not like her. His main complaint seems to be that she is a “Tory toff” who is biased against his favourite politicians and he lays it on thick that her advantages in life are down to the wages of sin.

This is Murray’s correction:

The Sins of The Father
Craig Murray
May 30, 2017

”Having spent the afternoon researching, the evidence tends to support Emma Barnett’s claim that she had been personally unaware that her family’s wealthy lifestyle was funded by the pimping and sex-trafficking activities of her parents. The emails between herself and her father about “whores” referenced by the Manchester Evening News, contained denials by her father to Emma that he remained involved. I therefore have here deleted my earlier entry which suggested the existence of these emails may argue against her claim of ignorance.”

Continued at:
www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/05/the-sins-of-the-father/

It very much sounds as if Murray has had sight of the emails but he does not quote them directly, perhaps because they are private correspondence? It leaves open the question of who said what but, given Murray’s antipathy to EB, it is hard to imagine he would have missed this opportunity to out her as the one who referred to “whores”.

Finally, searching Twitter for EB’s handle plus “whores” it is horrible to see that she has been hounded for years about this, often with embellishments claiming without any evidence that EB was directly involved in trafficking sex slaves. Pretty sick.

Search for EB’s handle plus “racist” and of course there are people calling her out over the WH incident, including some odd threats:

”She’s racist and will be dealt with by the ancestors- when will these people learn. We are no longer in play school.”

From reading articles that EB herself has written, I don’t particularly like how she comes over. However, that’s not the point.

Unless someone comes up with the actual “whore emails” I am done with that - and I still see it as a side-issue, raised simply to cast doubts on her character in the absence of evidence of unprofessionalism as alleged by KO.

Until KO states what she overheard, I am done with that too. If it was so bad, why not quote EB?

Chicchicchicchiclana · 11/01/2021 06:09

@Cailleach1

Unless WH are lying when they say KO denied the allegations? Would that not be a very damaging thing for them to do?
I missed this. When and where did WH confirm that this was all about KO's anti semitism and that she has since denied writing or making those remarks? Would be interested to see. Apologies if it's glaringly obvious on this thread.
Cailleach1 · 11/01/2021 08:23

@Chicchicchicchiclana , the response from EB/WH is on the first page from LindaSnellMBE. Can't seem to quote it, though.

Here is a link to the statement. There is a sentence near the end which states "She denied the allegations and hung up, choosing to no longer be part of the programme".

twitter.com/Emmabarnett/status/1346819404517044226/photo/1

Cailleach1 · 11/01/2021 08:25

The statement is near the end of the first picture.

Cailleach1 · 11/01/2021 09:01

Craig Murray has no problem with men being able to self ID as women. Well, why would he? From the first line of the article, I'm wondering is he associating women defending their sex based rights as hate. Well, why am I surprised? Of course a man thinks it is hateful for women to not be doormats for men. So, he damns EB for the sins of her father and the alleged quote of 'your whores' with no context or link.

www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/12/the-difficulty-of-gender-issues/

Love the way he says at the end that This whole issue is one of those subjects where I am aware that I need to duck for cover after writing.

Ah, cute Craig, but women won't be able to duck for cover with the self ID he personally doesn't have any problem with. How does he think self ID works or what it means? One could muse that reference to 'whores' had rather more to do with a tool to attack EB with than concern for women involved.

Chicchicchicchiclana · 11/01/2021 11:03

Thanks for re-linking that for me Cailleach.

nauticant · 11/01/2021 11:26

KO has now given a much fuller account:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/hypocrites-hour/id1324118843?i=1000504936937
from 1:13:50, it's very sweary.

KO: I was there to discuss #metoo.
KO: Because #metoo had become "whitewashed".
The Zoom non-muting happens.
EB: "For fuck's sake guys, for fuck's sake, why the fuck are we having KO on the show? Why the fuck are we having KO, I've got droves of tweets from people [according to KO it was only 2] saying why are you going to have someone with anti-Semitic views on your show? Why the fuck am I having a raging anti-Semite on the show? For fuck's sake guys why did nobody fucking check this? She was kicked off Top of the Pops for saying all of this stuff."

Apart from the rudeness, the lack of professionalism, and the lack of an apology, KO's argument seems to relate to 2 things. Firstly, it is incorrect that KO got the push from TOTP, that was a black man and so EB views black people as all the same even if they are of different sexes. The man removed from TOTP was Reggie Yates whose anti-Semitic comments KO supported so we can see where the mistake came from. Secondly, in the subsequent conversation EB said "Now now Kelechi, calm down" which KO say was was talking about her "like a dog".

BlackWaveComing · 11/01/2021 11:56

So EB was (rightfully) upset with her producers? Why did they choose to invite a woman with a history of anti-Semitism on the show? I'd like to know that too. So far as I'm concerned, people who knowingly and deliberately compare Jewish people to Shylock and his pound of flesh aren't fit for polite society.

I'm not surprised EB was furious.

Shedbuilder · 11/01/2021 11:57

Sounds like they have real problems in the production team, doesn't it? Who are the producers? Someone booked KO and didn't think about the consequences. Sounds as if the production team isn't the safe pair of hands that a presenter needs. Does this explain why Jane Garvey so often sounded nervous?

WhichOneOfUsIsCaving2 · 11/01/2021 11:58

You'd think a professional would avoid excessive swearing like that lest it accidentally slip out on live broadcasting where it clearly isn't allowed. I swear like a bastard but I'd reign it in if I had her job. (I'd like to imagine!)

Thanks for posting that bit of sunlight nauticant.

WhichOneOfUsIsCaving2 · 11/01/2021 12:00

...it's as tho the Gordon Brown mic-still-on thing never happened.

Clymene · 11/01/2021 12:03

Viewing all black people as the same is such bullshit. EB didn't even know who KO was so someone must have told her that KO got kicked off TOTP.

And once again, no apology, just doubling down.

Neither the production team nor Okafor come out of this looking good. EB's reaction was perfectly justified.

nauticant · 11/01/2021 12:12

To me the key take away is that before the programme I didn't know of the existence of KO or that she has a history for anti-Semitism for which she has not apologised nor assumed responsibility. I think KO making this a social media drama has been a real mistake, she got headpats from a small group of supporters while a much larger group now knows of her history of anti-Semitism.

The business of EB's father being involved in trafficking of prostituted women and that EB might have known something about this as a teenager or as a young woman was eye opening but is really just a side detail.

The fact that there's a lot of swearing in behind the scenes radio production might end up being my most unsurprising fact of 2021.