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Society & Culture

Are you “just a girl” … or are you a baby woman?

podcast August 3, 2026


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“Baby woman” is the girlboss’s Wario. 

“Baby woman” is a term coined by Shannon Keating in a piece for The Cut to describe a particular kind of affect some women have: it’s not just girlishness, but also some abdication of adult responsibility. And Shannon’s seen some baby women behavior out in the culture, from Lena Dunham to Amanda Batula. But what drives some women to be baby? And what do they get out of it? 

To find out, Brittany is joined by Shannon Keating, freelance writer, and Ashley Reese, writer, culture critic, and author of the Bad Brain Substack

For more episodes on the women’s relationships to themselves and culture, check out:
The price women pay for being online
Numb girls & the humiliation of caring too much
“Girl Math” does not add up to financial freedom

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