The Real Issue Isn’t Aubrey Plaza Moving On—It’s That We Think She Needs Permission

Aubrey Plaza has recently become the center of a conversation that reveals a deeper cultural double standard— one that shapes how men and women are expected to move on after loss. The 41-year-old actress recently confirmed she is expecting her first child with her boyfriend, actor Christopher Abbott, just over a year after the death of her late husband, Jeff Baena. 

While most outlets have framed the announcement as exciting news, reactions online have also surfaced a familiar pattern: questions about timing, speculation about grief, and commentary on whether it’s “too soon” for her to move on. 

In the months following Baena’s death, public discourse already blurred the line between fact and assumption. People began speculating about whether the split played a role in his death by suicide—as if Plaza were somehow responsible. Now, with the news of her pregnancy, the scrutiny has resurfaced and less about what she’s gone through, and more about how she’s choosing to live after it.  

What’s frustrating is that male widowers are rarely expected to remain alone. It’s widely understood that they will eventually move on. There’s even an entire rom-com built around that idea—Sleepless in Seattle, where the world roots for a widowed man (played by Tom Hanks) to find love again. His healing is framed as hopeful. 

But when the roles are reversed, a woman’s healing is often treated as something to be questioned. There’s an expectation that she should mourn longer, remain loyal to her deceased partner, and not appear “too happy too soon.”

These cultural norms often pressure women into extended periods of mourning—and even isolation—because of the belief that if a woman moves on “too quickly,” she must not have truly cared for her partner, or worse, that she’s being opportunistic, selfish, or disrespectful. This is despite the fact that male widows are widely known to move on at higher rates. 

According to studies, widowed men are significantly more likely to remarry than widowed women. While some may argue that men simply need companionship or sex more than women, the reality is far more complex—rooted in societal pressure and long-standing expectations around emotional labor.

Gender roles shape how loss is experienced—and how people are expected to grieve. Men often rely more heavily on partners for emotional support and domestic stability, while women are more likely to maintain social networks and manage emotional labor on their own. Because of this, men are often encouraged—or even expected—to seek out love again, while women are expected to simply endure loss more quietly and for longer.

What’s even more telling is how closely a woman’s “goodness” is often tied to loyalty. For widows— and even women post-breakup—that loyalty is often measured by how long she mourns and how visibly affected she appears. Moving forward becomes something she has to justify, rather than something she’s allowed to do. 

Plaza moving on, finding love, and becoming pregnant a little over a year after her husband’s death is less about timing and more about who is allowed to move forward without explanation. She and Baena had been separated prior to his death, and we like any relationship, their full story is not public knowledge. But even beyond that, no one outside of that experience has the authority to define what “too soon” means.

Instead of judging her, the conversation should shift toward understanding what it means to hold both loss and renewal at once. Because the reality is, life doesn’t pause for loss, it reshapes around it.

At the end of the day, this isn’t really about Aubrey Plaza—it’s about the discomfort we still have with women moving forward on their own terms. Grief doesn’t follow a timeline, and neither does healing. 

The real question isn’t whether she moved on “too soon,” but why we still feel entitled to decide what that timeline should look like for her in the first place. If we really believe women deserve autonomy, then that has to include how they grieve, heal, and move on. Anything less isn’t accountability—it’s control.