Can a Woman Wear a Babydoll Dress in Peace?

2026 dares to ask…Can a woman wearing a full-coverage, modest top be considered slutty? Yes, because we literally can’t go a day without bothering young women about their appearances, and the young woman in question is Olivia Rodrigo, who is now responding to criticism over her recent “scandalous” wardrobe (pictured above). 

Earlier this month, while debuting her new single “Drop Dead” for Spotify’s Billions Club live event, Rodrigo wore a babydoll-esque dress with matching bloomers—a style that is, by all means, in vogue in our current trend landscape. I wouldn’t have given the outfit a second thought (because I’m normal), but some folks on the internet had more to say (because they’re weird). People accused Rodrigo of promoting the fetishization of girls—and, writ large, pedophilia—by “dressing like a baby,” a sentence so backward it makes me want to divorce the internet and move somewhere far off the grid. On Wednesday, in a promo for her interview with The New York Times’s Popcast, Rodrigo spoke about how “disturbing” the whole debate is.

“What’s really disturbing is I have worn outfits that are maybe revealing on stage,” she said. “I’ve been on stage in a sparkly bra and little shorts, which is my right, that’s fun, I felt cool and comfortable in that. And that wasn’t inappropriate, but me fully covered up in a dress that people deemed to be childlike was inappropriate.” Yes, because women can’t do anything without some corner of the internet crawling out of the depths with notes. Have we learned nothing from the Chappell Roan debacle? Or [Insert any pop diva here]? 

“It just shows how we really normalize pedophilia in our culture,” Rodrigo continued, “And it’s also just this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we were so little, which is, ‘don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body and it’s your fault.’” Agreed. This is Sabrina Carpenter’s album cover all over again, except we’ve reached levels of stupid previously unfathomable. 

“I don’t want some freak to think that I’m sexy like a baby, or some crazy thing like that. I think it’s losing the plot a little bit. I’m just very protective of younger women, girls, and I don’t ever want them to be fed that rhetoric,” she added. 

You hear that? Olivia thinks we lost the plot, and I am once again parsing the details of a useless internet debate, all while there are bigger matters at hand for women in this country (See: Jezebel dot com).

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• This headline sums it up: “You’re the One Sexualizing Olivia Rodrigo in Her Babydoll Dress.” [Cosmopolitan]
• Happy Birthday, Kylie Minogue! [Pop Crave]
• Wait. I can’t keep up. Are KJ Apa and Mr. Fantasy the same dude or two different dudes? [People]
• Spencer Pratt has “multiple witnesses” that Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx endorsed his mayoral run. [Entertainment Weekly]
• Jojo Siwa and Chris Hughes celebrated one year of dating. [Instagram]
• Gayle King asked Oprah Winfrey to shut down rumors that they were in a relationship, but Oprah preferred to “let it slide.” [Call Her Daddy]
• Gwyneth Paltrow uses arugula as a dairy substitute, because obviously! [The Today Show]
• Re: That Knicks game courtside manspreading incident between Timothée Chalamet and Tina Fey: “Timothée’s legs took the front, my big old can was takin’ the back. We had no beef.” -Tina Fey [New Heights]