Emma Barnett Quotes

In the secular world, common sense must be the order of the day. It isn't reasonable not to have women occupying the same roles as men and vice versa. But in a religious sphere, where faith is the binding force of a group of people, rationale has less sway or place. If you started applying logic to the beliefs held in most faiths, things would start to fall apart pretty quickly at the seams.

EB: You're holding your manifesto, you're flicking through it, you've got an iPad there, you’ve had a phone call while we're in here and you don't know how much it's going to cost?
Jeremy Corbyn: Can we come back to that in a moment?
EB: What, when you've looked it up?! My point is it's quite troubling, this is a policy you're launching today Mr Corbyn and you don't know how much it's going to cost. It hardly inspires the voters.

Beginning IVF can be like walking into a high-stakes casino. From the moment you first place a bet, submitting those first bloods or semen samples, you are hooked. Excitement, hope, long odds and croupiers in white coats keep you coming back for more. A tweak of meds here, a change of diet there, the rush of the pregnancy test after weeks of needles and pills, and then the massive low of the single blue line. It all leaves you vowing you will never, ever gamble again.

I can see why so many politicians are in for a shock when they come on Barnett's show. The cool ease with which she can segue from convivial to confrontational is quite unnerving.

During the recent Tory leadership election, one of Boris Johnson’s emissaries struggled to defend his candidate’s erroneous claim about free trade under Gatt 24. After Barnett had conclusively exposed Johnson’s falsehood, he stuttered: "I don't believe he is incorrect." With deadpan scorn, she flashed back: "Because you don't believe facts?" To David Bull, a newly elected Brexit Party MEP who had complained on Twitter about his scandalous discovery that the journey to Strasbourg was quite long, she asked: "Did you not look up how you might get to the European parliament?" "Weirdly," he admitted, "it did not really cross my mind."

Anger at my father and the mess he had got himself into. Anger at the situation and anger that something I had no control over was threatening to control me. When your life implodes, either by your own doing or someone else’s, everything slows down. And I found myself presented at a young age with a stark choice: do I let myself be destroyed by a suffocating shame?

Earlier this week, male MPs struggled to say the same words in a debate about the so-called "tampon tax". This is the five per cent VAT rate that stubbornly remains on all period products – ineligible for zero rating because the European Commission deems tampons (oops, I mentioned them again) "non-essential" items. Try to telling that to any woman.
Female MPs and campaigners have been fighting for years to remove this ludicrous levy.
If nappies for children, maternity pads for new mothers and incontinence aids are all exempt, why does Brussels have a peculiar problem with blood?

During that first meeting it became clear that this wasn't a party with a long shelf life. In fact the WEP aimed to influence the political debate and then die a dignified and valiant death – gender equality accomplished. Fast forward seven months and the party has officially launched.

[The experience of a 24 year old sister of a friend] Just after finishing her master’s in economics, she started her first job at a City firm, full of ambition. But then she noticed something. There were no female board members – and all the way through the company there were far fewer women overall.
Rosie invited a large cross section of her female colleagues out to lunch at a local deli and pushed them on the matter. The response? Blank faces all round. None of them had “ever noticed” anything. An awkward silence ensued.
Rosie, not wanting to go overboard, dropped the issue. But, right at the end of the meal, the most senior woman present suddenly piped up. "I do sometimes wonder why all of the women who work here are so beautiful," she said.
No one knew how respond to another difficult truth: it seemed that looks had played a part in the men's hiring decisions. Rosie, bruised and bemused by the experience, has just let matters lie. She has rent to pay.

My experience of periods is extreme because of my endometriosis. But while most women don't have a specific condition, they still often feel grim at that time of the month, require painkillers, need to access the loo more often and may suffer headaches, backache, sweatier brows and the squits.

My grandmother escaped the Nazis from Wiener Neustadt in Austria and found sanctuary as a housemaid in this country. My husband's grandmother survived unspeakable torture in Auschwitz. In Europe. A two-hour flight from here. I've been. He won't. He can't bear to. Our grandmothers, who read us bedtime stories safe in our beds in this country, this happened to them – people I met and loved.
Only two weeks ago, I opened Twitter on my phone and saw "Jewish privilege" trending. Do you know how that feels? Do you how frightening that is? I have had my fair share of abuse online, much of it sexist or politically charged. But the one form of hate that always stops me in my tracks and makes me feel angry and sad and burned? Antisemitism.

[On her tolerance level] I'm OK with sexism, I'm OK with "you look shit", I'm quite good at laughing at the misogynistic stuff. [But she is upset by] the anti-semitic stuff. Because I really don't want that to be a thing in the country I live in — or anywhere.

No one said achieving gender equality would be easy. But if the WEP has got a fighting chance it needs to set out its stall on all the big issues of the day – while keeping a laser-like focus on its main battles. That way it might become a credible party that can steal seats and influence people. To get their attention, the new party must target David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon where it hurts. Only then will the parties that dominate Britain be forced to reckon with it. And only then will the women of the WEP truly be able to say that they have achieved a new gender equality – and retire.

I know how to read Hebrew, but I've still got no idea what it means. I recognise certain tunes, but have no clue as to the order of the service. And while it would be easy to blame my seating arrangement, I'd still have very little idea of what was going on if my gender permitted me a ring side pew.
So I have flip-flopped my way to a few Reform services. And while hearing more passages read in English and regular page number announcements are a comfort, I find myself feeling similarly isolated there. Reform Judaism's ways feel foreign because they lack the familiar rhythms of the Orthodox Judaism I grew up with.
However, in Orthodox services I feel increasingly like an illiterate and ill-educated fool, suffering imposter syndrome.

I personally found the first few months of motherhood discombobulating, knackering, joyous, emotional, frustrating and quite frankly odd.