+
More

Janelle Monáe's video caused a stir, but you probably missed this the first time around.

This totally makes sense now.

Janelle Monáe has a lot going on right now, with the release of a new record winning over fans and critics alike.

In January, the iconic singer delivered a powerhouse "Time's Up" speech at the Grammys. In April, she came out as pansexual in an interview with Rolling Stone, released a video for her latest single "Pynk," and put out her album "Dirty Computer" towards the end of the month. And apparently, she's still got a few surprises in store, if her recent statements about the symbolism in "Pynk" are any indication.

As many have noticed, one of the outfits Monáe and her backup dancers wear in the "Pynk" video has a certain Georgia O'Keeffe quality to it. "Sometimes I think people interpret those as vagina pants, they call them vulva pants, they call them flowers, but it just represents some parts of some women," Monáe recently told People magazine.


All GIFs from Janelle Monae/YouTube.

As viewers of the video might notice, not all of the dancers are wearing pants — and there's a reason for this.

"There are some women in the video that do not have on the pants, because I don’t believe that all women need to possess a vagina to be a woman," she told People:

"I have one, I'm proud of it, but there's a lot of policing and controlling that people are trying to have over our vaginas and when you think about female genital mutilation, when you think about all these women's issues, I wanted to make sure we were discussing these issues but we were also celebrating each other. I wanted 'Pynk' to be a celebration of women who are unique, distinct, different, maybe different from one another, but when they come together they create something magical and special."

In other words, Monáe believes transgender women are women, and that's really awesome and very cool.

Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images.

Like she said, "there's a lot of policing and controlling" when it comes to bodies.

We live in a world where politicians are constantly trying to dictate what people should do with their own bodies, their own uteruses. We live in a world where politicians feel entitled to our medical history before we're allowed to use the bathroom. We live in a world where the powerful try to impose their belief systems on the rest of us, working to strip away legitimacy and, at times, our very humanity.

That's why it's important to celebrate our differences. As a trans woman, I see my identity and legitimacy questioned on a near-daily basis.

Whether it's politicians using fear-mongering around trans people to win votes, people who use their religious views as a shield for bigotry, or even some self-proclaimed feminists (most feminists are perfectly cool with trans people, but some aren't) who spend their days trying to fight progress for trans people, I see it all — and it's exhausting, frankly.

Gloria Steinem, Cecile Richards, and Janelle Monáe at the 2017 CFDA Fashion Awards. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images.

"Are trans women women?" is one of those questions that tells you a lot about the person answering it.

Let's get one thing clear: There's a difference between asking whether trans women count as women (a different subset of women than cisgender/non-trans women, but women, nonetheless) and asking whether trans women are the exact same as cis women — to which the answer is clearly no — and you'd be hard-pressed to find a trans woman who'd argue that we are or that we have the same exact experiences as cis women, as we obviously don't.

Even feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wasn't very open-minded on this front. She hurt a lot of people in 2017 when she responded to this question about trans people, "So when people talk about, you know, 'Are trans women women?' my feeling is trans women are trans women," suggesting that trans women are an entirely different group outside the label of "women."

David Remnick interviews Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at The 2017 New Yorker Festival. Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New Yorker.

For more information on the debates over whether or not trans women are "real" women, check out trans scholar Julia Serano's excellent essay on the subject.

But Adichie managed to encapsulate many of those conflicts in that single frustrating, disheartening answer. That's because she conflated the question of whether trans women are women with the question of whether trans women are cis women. "Trans" is an adjective that modifies the noun, "women" — therefore, trans women are women. It's a bit of a letdown when a feminist icon like Adichie splits hairs over who counts as a woman.

Adichie elaborated on her position after backlash, writing, "Of course trans women are part of feminism," but the point seemed to be a bit lost on her.

Personally, seeing her remarks and those of people who agreed with her, I just... I just felt like some sort of freak, a subhuman forced into an odd third gender category that doesn't accurately state who I am.

For an artist like Monáe to send a message affirming that trans women are real and legitimate really does mean a lot to me, and many others.

As people, we're a lot more than just our genitals — and really, unless you're romantically involved with someone, or you're that person's doctor, it's hard to understand why those body parts are any of your business.

No two women share identical experiences in life, cis or trans. The best we can do is to try to have empathy for one another, to help one another, to listen, and to learn from one another.

I am extremely grateful that Monáe used her platform to fight back against the policing of bodies and genders. Whether or not we all have the same parts, we're still part of the same club. Thanks for fighting back against the policing of bodies and gender, and ripping up the rulebook on who gets to join, Janelle Monáe.

Joy

Homeless man catches family's two children and dogs dropped from burning apartment building

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them.'"

Man catches entire family as they jump from burning building.

House fires are devastating for families. In a matter of minutes, you could lose all of your belongings and a place to live, or worse, you could lose loved ones. A family in Phoenix, Arizona, recently found themselves facing the reality of their own home in flames. Claudia Jimenez told CBS News that she woke up trapped in her burning apartment with her two daughters, with nothing to do but yell for help in the hopes that someone would hear her.

The mom's screams were answered by Joe Hollins, a homeless man who was camping nearby with his wife. Hollins didn't hesitate to try to find a way to help. With no way out and the fire department still nowhere on the scene, Jimenez had to trust the stranger who was standing below.

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them,'" Jimenez told CBS.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less