{"id":12254,"date":"2025-11-26T16:37:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=12254"},"modified":"2025-12-18T22:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:49:20","slug":"the-dignity-of-dependence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/the-dignity-of-dependence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dignity of Dependence"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Myth of Autonomy<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Leah Libresco Sargeant offers a new vision for feminism\u2014and for how we understand human life in all its vulnerabilities.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Maura Ronayne<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>

Matthew 22:37-40<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Written for a largely secular audience, Leah Libresco Sargeant\u2019s new book, <\/span>The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto<\/span><\/i>, focuses on love of neighbor as a fundamental human <\/span>telos<\/span><\/i>. Challenging a society that upholds individual freedom as the ultimate good, Sargeant argues that human beings are ordered towards mutual interdependence. From the micro level (family members supporting family members in times of need) to the macro (a government stewarding its people), we are inextricably bound by bonds of relationship and mutual self-giving. Whether it\u2019s childhood, pregnancy, nursing, old age, sickness, injury, disability, death of a loved one, a mental health crisis, or the inevitable limits of our own capacities, all human beings exist at some point in their lives in a state of dependence on their fellow creatures. Yet it is precisely in this web of dependence, says Sargeant, that we find ourselves most fully human.<\/span><\/p>

Sargeant is part of a cohort of emerging thinkers brought together by legal scholar Erika Bachiochi in <\/span>Fairer Disputations<\/span><\/a>, \u201can international community of scholars, public intellectuals, and journalists that aims to advance a sex-realist feminism.\u201d As such, she not only acknowledges biological differences between men and women, but also believes that acknowledging them is essential for ensuring that women thrive. \u201cA feminism that fears acknowledging difference,\u201d she says, \u201cwill be unable to advocate fully for women.\u201d In contrast to the prevailing \u201cfeminism of freedom,\u201d the \u201c<\/span>feminism of care<\/span><\/a>\u201d promoted by Sargeant and her contemporaries like <\/span>Mary Harrington<\/span><\/a> promotes the holistic well-being of women in the context of their relationships, particularly motherhood.<\/span> The Dignity of Dependence<\/span><\/i> deserves a place on the shelf of anyone interested in this developing school of thought.<\/span><\/p>

In this self-described \u201cFeminist Manifesto,\u201d Sargeant makes her case compellingly, drawing together personal anecdotes, snippets of research, and poetic prose to form a beautiful tapestry of ideas and evidence. She questions feminist orthodoxy (particularly birth control and abortion) but offers a real vision that pushes further than mainstream feminism, asking not how a woman can get ahead in a man\u2019s world but rather how a world that really doesn\u2019t work for anyone, regardless of gender, can be fixed to accommodate everyone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Our society adheres to a \u201cfalse anthropology of independence,\u201d Sargeant claims, and it insists on a theoretical understanding of human beings as autonomous, \u201cfrictionless,\u201d and self-sufficient. Through this lens, being an independent adult, completely unencumbered and able to make and execute one\u2019s own choices, is the pinnacle of self-actualization. Never mind that we all start our lives as dependent, or that most end their lives, frail and elderly and\u00a0 dependent again. \u201cWe take autonomy as the pattern for human life, with childhood a brief, slightly embarrassing apprenticeship\u2026 This story of autonomy as the marker for full personhood necessarily cuts many people out of the human family,\u201d writes Sargeant. While a lucky few can and do glide through life relatively independent of others, a culture that valorizes autonomy and self-interested choice is a culture that demonizes the dependent, marginalizes the weak and disabled, and frays the bonds of human relationships.<\/span><\/p>

In her \u201cmanifesto,\u201d Sargeant describes a world that is ordered primarily for its own efficiency\u2014a world that, rather than accommodating the most vulnerable, is the \u201cwrong shape\u201d for the majority of people, and particularly the wrong shape for women. The stark reality is that women are quite often limited by biological constraints\u2014they are, on average, smaller, weaker, more prone to certain illnesses, and, importantly, have the potential for childbearing. And despite women making up half of the population, our world is not designed to accommodate their physical capacities. From medicine dosages, airbag heights, and the size of surgical instruments, to the schedule of the 9-5 workday, women \u201cmove through a world in which [the female] body is an unexpected, unanticipated, somewhat unwelcome guest. It is as though women were a late, unanticipated arrival to a civilization that developed without them and their needs in mind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0A culture (and legal system) that treats normal aspects of human life as unforeseen and inconvenient aberrations is not built for human flourishing\u2014it\u2019s built to sustain the <\/span>Machine <\/span>of modern life.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sargeant points out that women not only exist in a world built for men, but are also more \u201cphysically marked by relationships of care.\u201d Pregnancy, with its porous boundaries between mother and child, challenges the assumption that we are always fully autonomous individuals.\u00a0 From the first spark of conception, every human being begins life dependent on a woman. In gestation, nursing, and childbirth, we cannot deny biology\u2019s intricate ties of interdependency. This vulnerability is twofold: women who undergo pregnancy or childrearing also require extra support from their family, friends, and community. Even for women who are not biological mothers, the mere existence of female fertility cycles, and the common maternal desire to care for others, points towards the reality that human beings exist not in isolation, but within what Sargeant calls \u201cconcentric circles of care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

While men can more easily detach themselves from dependency, \u201cWomen\u2019s own bodies are hard to fully abstract away\u2026 our cyclic changes and seasons of vulnerability are treated as design flaws.\u201d Women are told to get back to work after giving birth, shut off their menstrual cycles with birth control, have an abortion to avoid getting tied down, pay for caretakers for their small children or aging parents. Only in the tax code are dependents a benefit; in careers and in public opinion, care is penalized. As a result, instead of emerging as a natural outpouring of love, care has become professionalized, outsourced to daycare workers, home health aides, and gig workers. This unnatural setup impacts not only women but also men, and disproportionately harms the disabled, elderly, chronically ill, poverty-stricken, and children at large. A culture (and legal system) that treats normal aspects of human life as unforeseen and inconvenient aberrations is not built for human flourishing\u2014it\u2019s built to sustain the <\/span>Machine <\/span><\/a>of modern life.<\/span><\/p>

The Dignity of Dependence<\/span><\/i> is at its most compelling in the final chapter, when Sargeant contends that everyone, from individuals to institutions, should reject unsustainable individualism and embrace a framework of true interdependence and radical love. \u201cOur ties to one another are not obstacles to self-actualization, they are the foundation for the authentic self,\u201d she insists. \u201cIf we grew into the autonomous beings of our imagining, we would not recognize ourselves and we would not know how to give ourselves to each other in love.\u201d She does not provide specific remedies to fix our broken culture, but rather emphasizes a paradigm shift, insisting on the daily decision to receive each other\u2019s burdens: \u201cUnlearning the world\u2019s contempt for weakness isn\u2019t a simple intellectual shift\u2014-it takes sustained, lived countercatechesis.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Is such unlearning possible? Sargeant gestures towards top-down policy solutions like paid family leave and grassroots efforts like Buy Nothing groups or mobilizing a parish\u2019s young men to help the elderly. Such suggestions are helpful, but limited in scope. Although the book is hugely successful at shifting the framework of its readers, it cannot (or will not) offer a blueprint for civilizational reform. But, perhaps that is the point, after all. Saving grace cannot be imposed on individuals through institutions; it ought to spread like wildfire through real and intimate interdependency linked, warmly, by the bonds of love and care.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Maura Ronayne<\/b> is the Director of Marketing & Communications at the <\/span>Abigail Adams Institute<\/span><\/a>, an organization dedicated to revitalizing humanities education at Harvard. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 2020 and now lives with her husband Mathieu in Arlington, MA.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto<\/b><\/em> was published by Notre Dame Press on October 1, 2025. <\/span>Fare Forward <\/span><\/i>appreciates the provision of a review copy. You can purchase your own copy <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leah Libresco Sargeant offers a new vision for feminism\u2014and for how we understand human life in all its vulnerabilities. Review by Maura 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