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The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto
The Dignity of Dependence argues that women’s equal rights depend on advocating for women as women.
The world is not ready to welcome women as women; a culture that fears dependence and asks everyone to aim for autonomy and independence will always be a society hostile to women. Women are expected to care for those around them while living in a society that despises need and penalizes those who care for the weak.
The Dignity of Dependence aims to liberate women and men from this corrosive and false ideal of the human person as strongest alone. Leah Libresco Sargeant argues that to thrive, human beings need to exist in webs of mutual dependence, not in isolating, radical autonomy. Women’s equal dignity doesn’t require women to deny biological reality or attempt to be interchangeable with men. Sargeant advocates for building a culture that accepts and celebrates women as they are rather than demanding that women keep their relationships and their bodies in check. The fight for women’s dignity is a fight for a full, human dignity—a dignity that isn’t threatened by dependence. It is our need for each other that makes us human.
The world is not ready to welcome women as women; a culture that fears dependence and asks everyone to aim for autonomy and independence will always be a society hostile to women. Women are expected to care for those around them while living in a society that despises need and penalizes those who care for the weak.
The Dignity of Dependence aims to liberate women and men from this corrosive and false ideal of the human person as strongest alone. Leah Libresco Sargeant argues that to thrive, human beings need to exist in webs of mutual dependence, not in isolating, radical autonomy. Women’s equal dignity doesn’t require women to deny biological reality or attempt to be interchangeable with men. Sargeant advocates for building a culture that accepts and celebrates women as they are rather than demanding that women keep their relationships and their bodies in check. The fight for women’s dignity is a fight for a full, human dignity—a dignity that isn’t threatened by dependence. It is our need for each other that makes us human.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2025
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2525 people want to read
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October 1, 2025
Make your own soup!
In a 2015 television ad for Campbell's soup, the sick boyfriend on the couch says, "You know, when I got sick, my mom used to make me chicken noodle soup." His girlfriend says, "Aww, okay." She walks away (you think to make him soup) and then she throws his phone to him and says, "You should call your mom." And she leaves the house.
This commercial kept coming to mind as I read The Dignity of Dependence.
"[M]any men and women live... believing in a narrow definition of "normal" life as autonomous life." There isn't room for care if every individual is expected to be fully independent at all times.
When do you make soup for others? Who makes soup for you?
Modern American society is a bed of Procrustes, where everyone is expected to fit into a fully independent (male) shape. Any part of life that hangs off the sides of this bed (cycles of fertility, childbearing, caring for aging or sick parents, etc) is seen as an *individual* problem to be cut off.
"It's impossible for a human being to meet an inhumane demand. But it's easy to feel like the problem is individual, a personal weakness, not an intrinsically impossible standard."
I started Leah Libresco Sargeant's The Dignity of Dependence after hosting a community dinner, when I was so tired that I told myself I would not pass Go or collect $200, but Go Directly to Bed, once the kids were asleep. Then I opened this book.... 145 pages later, I only paused reading because I could not keep my eyes open. I finished the book right away. This book was gripping! I was so interested!
I was astonished to read the statistics that in a car crash, a woman is 17 per cent more likely to die, and 73 per cent more likely to be injured than a man in the same crash. But the real shock was hearing that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made no changes based on this data and instead blamed women for their own deaths because they were sitting "too close to the air bag." They're shorter on average!! What do you expect them to do?!
Instead of solving a *society* problem, like air bag settings, the industry is allowed to make women's shorter-on-average height an *individual* problem.
If height can be an individual problem, why not children? *You* "chose" to have children. (Nevermind that having children is the only way the human race continues!)
"Babies can't survive a culture that despises dependence. A baby who can't be easily accommodated is expected to be aborted. Women... cannot live a full, flourishing life when our basic biology is treated as a design flaw. We cannot pay an entry price in blood for an illusion of equality. A culture that idolizes autonomy can't value pregnancy."
I highly recommend reading The Dignity of Dependence, whatever your politics or current state in life. "We cannot treat the ordinary events of human life, like childbearing, education, and aging, as a surprise."
These topics are not women's issues, these are human issues. We all start as babies, we have times of dependence throughout our lives, and we grow old. We all need someone to make us soup.
In a 2015 television ad for Campbell's soup, the sick boyfriend on the couch says, "You know, when I got sick, my mom used to make me chicken noodle soup." His girlfriend says, "Aww, okay." She walks away (you think to make him soup) and then she throws his phone to him and says, "You should call your mom." And she leaves the house.
This commercial kept coming to mind as I read The Dignity of Dependence.
"[M]any men and women live... believing in a narrow definition of "normal" life as autonomous life." There isn't room for care if every individual is expected to be fully independent at all times.
When do you make soup for others? Who makes soup for you?
Modern American society is a bed of Procrustes, where everyone is expected to fit into a fully independent (male) shape. Any part of life that hangs off the sides of this bed (cycles of fertility, childbearing, caring for aging or sick parents, etc) is seen as an *individual* problem to be cut off.
"It's impossible for a human being to meet an inhumane demand. But it's easy to feel like the problem is individual, a personal weakness, not an intrinsically impossible standard."
I started Leah Libresco Sargeant's The Dignity of Dependence after hosting a community dinner, when I was so tired that I told myself I would not pass Go or collect $200, but Go Directly to Bed, once the kids were asleep. Then I opened this book.... 145 pages later, I only paused reading because I could not keep my eyes open. I finished the book right away. This book was gripping! I was so interested!
I was astonished to read the statistics that in a car crash, a woman is 17 per cent more likely to die, and 73 per cent more likely to be injured than a man in the same crash. But the real shock was hearing that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made no changes based on this data and instead blamed women for their own deaths because they were sitting "too close to the air bag." They're shorter on average!! What do you expect them to do?!
Instead of solving a *society* problem, like air bag settings, the industry is allowed to make women's shorter-on-average height an *individual* problem.
If height can be an individual problem, why not children? *You* "chose" to have children. (Nevermind that having children is the only way the human race continues!)
"Babies can't survive a culture that despises dependence. A baby who can't be easily accommodated is expected to be aborted. Women... cannot live a full, flourishing life when our basic biology is treated as a design flaw. We cannot pay an entry price in blood for an illusion of equality. A culture that idolizes autonomy can't value pregnancy."
I highly recommend reading The Dignity of Dependence, whatever your politics or current state in life. "We cannot treat the ordinary events of human life, like childbearing, education, and aging, as a surprise."
These topics are not women's issues, these are human issues. We all start as babies, we have times of dependence throughout our lives, and we grow old. We all need someone to make us soup.
December 23, 2025
A sharp, sympathetic case for human flourishing rendered through a close reading of the female experience. Modern society asserts a false anthropology, Leah argues: that of the independence of the human person. No one is truly separable from others, which a woman both understands and exhibits, in the particularity of the physical limitations and the gifts granted her by the nature of her femininity.
Leah’s proposal is compassionate, unhesitating, and woven through with a wealth of resources. Reading, I felt chastened by my own history of cherishing autonomy over and against allowing my needs to serve as invitations into the pores of my life. I also found here a wonderful reminder of the beauty and givenness of being a woman in the world, with its burdens and its accompanying honors and joys. Much to contemplate for the modern reader—whether man or woman!—who seeks to live courageously with the truth that, as Leah writes, “It is the largeness of our love that exposes us to risk.”
Leah’s proposal is compassionate, unhesitating, and woven through with a wealth of resources. Reading, I felt chastened by my own history of cherishing autonomy over and against allowing my needs to serve as invitations into the pores of my life. I also found here a wonderful reminder of the beauty and givenness of being a woman in the world, with its burdens and its accompanying honors and joys. Much to contemplate for the modern reader—whether man or woman!—who seeks to live courageously with the truth that, as Leah writes, “It is the largeness of our love that exposes us to risk.”
September 20, 2025
Alisdair MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals caused a profound shift in my understanding of the human person, so when I saw this upcoming release from Notre Dame Press, I was immediately hopeful that Leah Libresco Sargeant's new book would further this theme. I was not disappointed!
This book explores the idea of dependence from a uniquely feminist perspective. Like MacIntyre, the author argues that dependence is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, one that we often try to ignore or outsmart in our misguided assertion of autonomy as our highest good. She focuses, though, on the particular dependencies inherent in the condition of womanhood, dependencies that are both biological and socially constructed. The result is a thought-provoking commentary on the choices we could make in order to better acknowledge and appreciate the reality of dependence and the ultimate necessity of accepting and honoring the beauty of our design. Seen as an essential aspect of our humanity, dependence and interdependence can become something fruitful and profound when we embrace them as strength rather than weakness.
Lots of food for thought here, and an insightful addition to the body of work inspired by MacIntyre.
This book explores the idea of dependence from a uniquely feminist perspective. Like MacIntyre, the author argues that dependence is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, one that we often try to ignore or outsmart in our misguided assertion of autonomy as our highest good. She focuses, though, on the particular dependencies inherent in the condition of womanhood, dependencies that are both biological and socially constructed. The result is a thought-provoking commentary on the choices we could make in order to better acknowledge and appreciate the reality of dependence and the ultimate necessity of accepting and honoring the beauty of our design. Seen as an essential aspect of our humanity, dependence and interdependence can become something fruitful and profound when we embrace them as strength rather than weakness.
Lots of food for thought here, and an insightful addition to the body of work inspired by MacIntyre.
November 16, 2025
Make no mistake, this book is for everyone, not just women. So grateful for Leah’s clear voice. Maybe pair with Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal” if you want to lean into Leah’s discussion on medicine and anthropology or James K. A. Smith’s “You Are What You Love” if you want to lean into the theological side of things (which Leah didn’t get so much into since she intends for a wider audience than just Christians). Got to host a discussion on this brilliant little book at my church’s women’s retreat and it led to a stirring conversation on localism and neighborliness. :)
October 7, 2025
A beautiful gift of a book to read in these days with a cluster-feeding newborn, for both its content and its readability.
June 1, 2025
Review of The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto
From the Perspective of a Feminist Public Health Practitioner
Leah Libresco Sargeant’s The Dignity of Dependence is a bold and necessary intervention in feminist thought—one that deeply resonates with the intersections of gender, health justice, and care ethics. As a public health practitioner committed to feminist praxis, I found myself both intellectually challenged and emotionally stirred by Sargeant’s radical rejection of autonomy as the ultimate feminist ideal and her celebration of interdependence as a site of power rather than shame.
Emotional Resonance: Liberation Through Interdependence
Reading this book felt like exhaling after years of holding my breath in a field that often pays lip service to “community care” while still measuring success through metrics of individual self-sufficiency. Sargeant’s unflinching critique of neoliberal feminism—with its obsession with “leaning in” and personal productivity—validated my professional frustrations with public health systems that punish vulnerability while claiming to serve it.
Particularly moving was her framing of dependence as a fundamental feminist issue. This perspective immediately brought to mind the women I’ve worked with—those navigating addiction recovery, parenting with disabilities, or surviving intimate partner violence—whose strength is systematically undermined by systems that equate needing help with failure. There were moments when her words brought me to tears, especially when she exposed how our cultural obsession with independence creates what I’ve witnessed professionally: mothers afraid to seek addiction treatment for fear of losing custody, or elderly women rationing medications to avoid “burdening” their families.
Key Insights for Feminist Public Health
The Myth of Self-Sufficiency in Health Policy: Sargeant’s work exposes how public health’s emphasis on “individual responsibility” in everything from weight management to medication adherence is fundamentally anti-feminist. Her framework helps explain why programs truly centering interdependence—like community-based doula models or mutual aid networks—show such transformative results.
Care Work as Power: The book’s reclamation of caregiving as political rather than passive aligns perfectly with feminist public health’s growing emphasis on valuing reproductive labor. It made me reconsider how we might redesign systems if we truly saw breastfeeding support workers or home health aides as leaders rather than “ancillary staff.”
Structural Stigma Laid Bare: Sargeant’s analysis helps name why punitive approaches to welfare, substance use, and disability services feel so viscerally wrong—they pathologize the very dependencies that make us human. This framework could revolutionize how we approach issues like the overdose crisis or maternal mortality.
Constructive Criticism
While profoundly impactful, I found myself wishing for:
-More explicit connection to structural oppression: The book’s philosophical depth sometimes floats above the material realities of how racism, capitalism, and ableism weaponize dependence. For readers who are public health practitioners, we need these connections to be made clearer.
-Concrete applications: I longed for case studies showing how this philosophy might transform specific health initiatives—perhaps reimagining WIC programs or domestic violence shelters through this lens.
Final Thoughts
The Dignity of Dependence is required reading for public health workers weary of band-aid solutions and ready to challenge the very foundations of how we conceptualize care. Sargeant doesn’t just diagnose our cultural sickness—she offers a radical prescription: that true liberation lies not in solitary independence, but in the sacred, messy web of mutual need.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5/5) – A paradigm-shifting work that will linger in my practice for years to come.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the complimentary review copy. At a time when burnout threatens our field and neoliberal reforms fail the most vulnerable, this manifesto offers both balm and blueprint.
From the Perspective of a Feminist Public Health Practitioner
Leah Libresco Sargeant’s The Dignity of Dependence is a bold and necessary intervention in feminist thought—one that deeply resonates with the intersections of gender, health justice, and care ethics. As a public health practitioner committed to feminist praxis, I found myself both intellectually challenged and emotionally stirred by Sargeant’s radical rejection of autonomy as the ultimate feminist ideal and her celebration of interdependence as a site of power rather than shame.
Emotional Resonance: Liberation Through Interdependence
Reading this book felt like exhaling after years of holding my breath in a field that often pays lip service to “community care” while still measuring success through metrics of individual self-sufficiency. Sargeant’s unflinching critique of neoliberal feminism—with its obsession with “leaning in” and personal productivity—validated my professional frustrations with public health systems that punish vulnerability while claiming to serve it.
Particularly moving was her framing of dependence as a fundamental feminist issue. This perspective immediately brought to mind the women I’ve worked with—those navigating addiction recovery, parenting with disabilities, or surviving intimate partner violence—whose strength is systematically undermined by systems that equate needing help with failure. There were moments when her words brought me to tears, especially when she exposed how our cultural obsession with independence creates what I’ve witnessed professionally: mothers afraid to seek addiction treatment for fear of losing custody, or elderly women rationing medications to avoid “burdening” their families.
Key Insights for Feminist Public Health
The Myth of Self-Sufficiency in Health Policy: Sargeant’s work exposes how public health’s emphasis on “individual responsibility” in everything from weight management to medication adherence is fundamentally anti-feminist. Her framework helps explain why programs truly centering interdependence—like community-based doula models or mutual aid networks—show such transformative results.
Care Work as Power: The book’s reclamation of caregiving as political rather than passive aligns perfectly with feminist public health’s growing emphasis on valuing reproductive labor. It made me reconsider how we might redesign systems if we truly saw breastfeeding support workers or home health aides as leaders rather than “ancillary staff.”
Structural Stigma Laid Bare: Sargeant’s analysis helps name why punitive approaches to welfare, substance use, and disability services feel so viscerally wrong—they pathologize the very dependencies that make us human. This framework could revolutionize how we approach issues like the overdose crisis or maternal mortality.
Constructive Criticism
While profoundly impactful, I found myself wishing for:
-More explicit connection to structural oppression: The book’s philosophical depth sometimes floats above the material realities of how racism, capitalism, and ableism weaponize dependence. For readers who are public health practitioners, we need these connections to be made clearer.
-Concrete applications: I longed for case studies showing how this philosophy might transform specific health initiatives—perhaps reimagining WIC programs or domestic violence shelters through this lens.
Final Thoughts
The Dignity of Dependence is required reading for public health workers weary of band-aid solutions and ready to challenge the very foundations of how we conceptualize care. Sargeant doesn’t just diagnose our cultural sickness—she offers a radical prescription: that true liberation lies not in solitary independence, but in the sacred, messy web of mutual need.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5/5) – A paradigm-shifting work that will linger in my practice for years to come.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for the complimentary review copy. At a time when burnout threatens our field and neoliberal reforms fail the most vulnerable, this manifesto offers both balm and blueprint.
November 13, 2025
As a mother, this book named for me truths that I have felt from the beginning. It was easy to resonate with. And yet I definitely needed this book in order to have words for it, because I have discovered in myself a strong distaste for dependence that needs to be rooted out. Sargaent clearly lays out how dependence is deeply human, so do deny it or attempt to live outside of its bounds, is to deny my humanity.
November 18, 2025
This past Sunday after church I joined my mother for lunch with my aunt and uncle. My uncle worked in building maintenance for many years and his cabin property in near Kamloops was dubbed "the Boot Camp," a testament to his blue collar sensibilities and drive to build and renovate. A few years ago he suffered a stroke and, while he has made some good progress in recovery, his memory has been permanently impaired and one of his hands can no longer perform the ordinary, everyday tasks that so many of us take for granted (at lunch he said rolling up the sleeve of his shirt takes him an hour). He and my aunt (who was never comfortable driving) now depend on their children or my mother to take them to appointments and errands.
I thought about my aunt and uncle as I finished reading Leah Libresco Sargeant's book The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Mainfesto (which has already sold out its original print run!). Sargeant's book reads more like a series of essays rather than being a connected whole, though the themes of a more humane society established on trust and relationships are prevalent throughout. Admittedly, as a man who has never been married, I couldn't relate to some of the book and it tends to be more American-centric (with Sargeant critiquing the USA's pitiable medical policies, particularly for lower socioeconomic classes and minorities).
Still, there is a lot of food for thought here. Sargeant and many of the other writers in the Fairer Disputations circle are a thought-provoking group of cultural commentators as they tread the line between radical leftist feminists who (of course) shout their abortions on the one side and complementarians and "trad wives" on the other hand who (as Sargeant points out) so thoroughly take on the role of the "angel of domesticity" that their husband effectively becomes a pure consumer of the home; yes, as the breadwinner he provides in this valuable way, but he may not contribute to the "second shift" - changing diapers, shopping for groceries, vacuuming the living room. Many of the Fairer Disputations writers have professional lives outside the home, even as they offer analysis of feminism and motherhood in the 21st century.
Sargeant is a deeply humane and attentive writer.
I thought about my aunt and uncle as I finished reading Leah Libresco Sargeant's book The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Mainfesto (which has already sold out its original print run!). Sargeant's book reads more like a series of essays rather than being a connected whole, though the themes of a more humane society established on trust and relationships are prevalent throughout. Admittedly, as a man who has never been married, I couldn't relate to some of the book and it tends to be more American-centric (with Sargeant critiquing the USA's pitiable medical policies, particularly for lower socioeconomic classes and minorities).
Still, there is a lot of food for thought here. Sargeant and many of the other writers in the Fairer Disputations circle are a thought-provoking group of cultural commentators as they tread the line between radical leftist feminists who (of course) shout their abortions on the one side and complementarians and "trad wives" on the other hand who (as Sargeant points out) so thoroughly take on the role of the "angel of domesticity" that their husband effectively becomes a pure consumer of the home; yes, as the breadwinner he provides in this valuable way, but he may not contribute to the "second shift" - changing diapers, shopping for groceries, vacuuming the living room. Many of the Fairer Disputations writers have professional lives outside the home, even as they offer analysis of feminism and motherhood in the 21st century.
Sargeant is a deeply humane and attentive writer.
March 1, 2026
Fantastic. Libresco Sargeant eloquently argues for a society that honors and values vulnerability and dependence for the gifts that they are to women and men alike. She challenges our modern ideals of autonomy and individualism and presents an alternative perspective that honors the humanity of every person and celebrates God’s design for interdependence.
“Vulnerability cannot be solved; it can only be shared.”
“Vulnerability cannot be solved; it can only be shared.”
January 9, 2026
if I could convince everyone I know to read a book, it would be this book.
"To treat each other justly, we must be honest about who we are. Men and women are deeply dependent creatures. We cannot build a just society on a false anthropology of independence. We cannot have a feminism that does not begin with recognizing and rejoicing in the embodied difference between men and women, and women’s greater exposure to dependence. A baby is not a failed person for being so obviously human, and a woman is similarly most herself and most human when her life is shaped by the gift of need and vulnerability."
"To treat each other justly, we must be honest about who we are. Men and women are deeply dependent creatures. We cannot build a just society on a false anthropology of independence. We cannot have a feminism that does not begin with recognizing and rejoicing in the embodied difference between men and women, and women’s greater exposure to dependence. A baby is not a failed person for being so obviously human, and a woman is similarly most herself and most human when her life is shaped by the gift of need and vulnerability."
February 2, 2026
Libresco Sargeant writes that the world is the wrong shape for women, in a lot of ways. Our medicine, cars, workplaces, and basketball courts are designed with men in mind, and there are deep currents and daily points of friction between women and the world they inhabit.
Women uniquely embody dependence--not as inherent weakness (though perhaps comparative weakness in some ways), but as essential to producing and forming life. To make this claim, she leans heavily on pregnancy and mothering. That emphasis might sting for the childless, but the creation logic holds: humans cannot and should not escape dependence. There is something essential here.
And because they are, well, human, men are dependent, too. Especially when infants, children, injured, disabled, or aged--there are countless moments and where dependence is acute for both men and women.
But this raises an issue just as concerning: the Western world is the wrong shape for humans. Productivity and independence are god. Dependence and weakness are liability, to be hidden away and contracted for care--increasingly to strangers.
But dependence isn't a bug in human being--it's a feature. We are not made to be alone. An economy of debt, gifts given and debts received, is the way of embodied community. We cannot even come to be without absolute dependence. We may be able to escape the feeling of dependence as we grow, but independence is a lie. We stand on shoulders, and are carried and propped up by the strength of a thousand thousands, past and present. Leaning into our dependence leads to right relationship with others, relationship marked by "uncalculated giving and graceful receiving" of friendship, of help, of care, of wisdom--of life.
I was encouraged to interrogate a few of my strong aversions and opinions of varying weight: taking a new last name, caring for aging parents, keeping accounts in friendships, asking for help.
And I kept asking the question: am I my brother's keeper?
I am. We are.
The cost of care is inescapable. It must be shared. And when it is shared, it becomes a reward, and is beautiful.
Women uniquely embody dependence--not as inherent weakness (though perhaps comparative weakness in some ways), but as essential to producing and forming life. To make this claim, she leans heavily on pregnancy and mothering. That emphasis might sting for the childless, but the creation logic holds: humans cannot and should not escape dependence. There is something essential here.
And because they are, well, human, men are dependent, too. Especially when infants, children, injured, disabled, or aged--there are countless moments and where dependence is acute for both men and women.
But this raises an issue just as concerning: the Western world is the wrong shape for humans. Productivity and independence are god. Dependence and weakness are liability, to be hidden away and contracted for care--increasingly to strangers.
But dependence isn't a bug in human being--it's a feature. We are not made to be alone. An economy of debt, gifts given and debts received, is the way of embodied community. We cannot even come to be without absolute dependence. We may be able to escape the feeling of dependence as we grow, but independence is a lie. We stand on shoulders, and are carried and propped up by the strength of a thousand thousands, past and present. Leaning into our dependence leads to right relationship with others, relationship marked by "uncalculated giving and graceful receiving" of friendship, of help, of care, of wisdom--of life.
I was encouraged to interrogate a few of my strong aversions and opinions of varying weight: taking a new last name, caring for aging parents, keeping accounts in friendships, asking for help.
And I kept asking the question: am I my brother's keeper?
I am. We are.
The cost of care is inescapable. It must be shared. And when it is shared, it becomes a reward, and is beautiful.
January 5, 2026
One of the best and most important books I have read in a long time. I just finished it two minutes ago, so I am still processing but WOW.
This book dives into what it means to be human and how we cannot divorce who we are from our dependency. To be human is to be in need. This need is in every person’s biological DNA, men and women alike.
This isn’t a read just for women, but men too. We live in a world and culture that fears being needy or dependent, so much value is placed on total autonomy and if one does not fit into this category, one is a threat or penalized. Leah Libresco Sargeant helps shift the mindset of this toxic mentality that people are the most human or the “best” alone to the beauty and necessity of mutual dependence.
This book dives into what it means to be human and how we cannot divorce who we are from our dependency. To be human is to be in need. This need is in every person’s biological DNA, men and women alike.
This isn’t a read just for women, but men too. We live in a world and culture that fears being needy or dependent, so much value is placed on total autonomy and if one does not fit into this category, one is a threat or penalized. Leah Libresco Sargeant helps shift the mindset of this toxic mentality that people are the most human or the “best” alone to the beauty and necessity of mutual dependence.
December 23, 2025
Lots of thoughts about this book—so good, although not quite what I was expecting when I set out reading it. She spent more time talking biology/pro-life concepts than I expected (which is great, don’t get me wrong). At times made it feel a little unclear what the exact emphasis of the book was.
That said, her approach to women’s rights from the perspective of prolife and her way of engaging interdependence as something to embrace as part of what makes us human as a society versus something to reject or work ourselves away from is something I’m still internalizing and processing (and the quantity of notes in the margins of my copy shows how relevant and engaging the read was for me). Approaching the topic of dependence as something to be embraced made me realize how much pride I have taken in “not being needy,” which she would challenge as being a point of loss of community and connection. Oof.
I honestly think this is more than simply a book about feminism, but a book about what makes us human, about what draws us together in community, and what happens when we try to bypass it, or supersede the things that make us human. Would recommend this to both men and women who are wanting to engage the topic of how to live in whole, healthy, welcoming communities and work places that engage and embrace the callings and abilities of all the individuals, recognizing the unique needs and gifting that each person brings to the table.
That said, her approach to women’s rights from the perspective of prolife and her way of engaging interdependence as something to embrace as part of what makes us human as a society versus something to reject or work ourselves away from is something I’m still internalizing and processing (and the quantity of notes in the margins of my copy shows how relevant and engaging the read was for me). Approaching the topic of dependence as something to be embraced made me realize how much pride I have taken in “not being needy,” which she would challenge as being a point of loss of community and connection. Oof.
I honestly think this is more than simply a book about feminism, but a book about what makes us human, about what draws us together in community, and what happens when we try to bypass it, or supersede the things that make us human. Would recommend this to both men and women who are wanting to engage the topic of how to live in whole, healthy, welcoming communities and work places that engage and embrace the callings and abilities of all the individuals, recognizing the unique needs and gifting that each person brings to the table.
October 31, 2025
Beautifully written. This was everything I hoped it would be
January 30, 2026
5/5 for a book club. Had excellent talking points, poised interesting perspectives and takes on our modern world. For an individual read, more of a 2/5. The writing itself isn’t very cohesive and there were many parts that I would’ve just been frustrated by if I didn’t have a book club to talk it out with.
October 7, 2025
This shifted the way I saw the world — and myself. Such a brilliant job unpacking our culture’s attitude toward vulnerability and need, and the trickle down effects of the way these beliefs are enacted
September 18, 2025
4.5 stars rounded up ⭐️ This book is bold, tender, and compelling. It sketches a multilayered picture of our current society’s foundation and fissures, using vivid and wide-ranging examples (an early one about the anatomy of car crash test dummies was especially powerful). It also weaves in proposals for course corrections big and small.
Favorite snippets include:
”Recognizing and honoring the differences between men and women means putting dependence at the heart of our account of what it means to be human. Dependence marks women more obviously and more intimately, but it is also impossible to tell the truth about who men are or treat them justly without accounting for our mutual dependence. No just society can be built on the basis of a false anthropology.” Page 19.
”When women’s vulnerability to the dependence of others makes them too large, too sprawling to fit easily into a culture of individuals, women face pressure to prune themselves.” Page 61.
”When the world swerves from our plans and expectations, we can resent the trick as unfair. Or we can become a little playful or even awed by a world larger than our own authorship. Hyde's commerce with accident" and Ruhl's "investigation of the pauses" give me a script for actively engaging with periods of weakness, need, and suffering, not just passively enduring them. I strive for open-handed curiosity, not numb fatalism.” Page 132.
Favorite snippets include:
”Recognizing and honoring the differences between men and women means putting dependence at the heart of our account of what it means to be human. Dependence marks women more obviously and more intimately, but it is also impossible to tell the truth about who men are or treat them justly without accounting for our mutual dependence. No just society can be built on the basis of a false anthropology.” Page 19.
”When women’s vulnerability to the dependence of others makes them too large, too sprawling to fit easily into a culture of individuals, women face pressure to prune themselves.” Page 61.
”When the world swerves from our plans and expectations, we can resent the trick as unfair. Or we can become a little playful or even awed by a world larger than our own authorship. Hyde's commerce with accident" and Ruhl's "investigation of the pauses" give me a script for actively engaging with periods of weakness, need, and suffering, not just passively enduring them. I strive for open-handed curiosity, not numb fatalism.” Page 132.
December 30, 2025
It was the New York Times podcast where Ross Douthat had Leah Libresco Sargeant go toe-to-toe with anti-feminist Helen Andrews--a video which I recommend--which led me to read this book. As an older woman on the younger side, I considered several concepts in this book worthwhile, particularly, the possibly flawed notion that individuals in the United States should pursue an autonomous life. Certainly, independence was my sentiment as a young woman when I vowed I would provide for my own well-being with or without a man.
Still, as a mother to two adopted children, I read along and thought "What about me, the woman who has never given birth?" Am I to be lumped in with men who, unlike women who birth children, cannot make the same connection to another human viscerally and literally "by lending their bodies to a child"? What if I don't have the physical strength of a man, who can therefore "fill in the breach" between those who do and those who don't give birth?
I also didn't care for the comparison of tooth veneers, which cannot be reversed, to the idea that openness to dependency is relational and regenerative, that is, open to growth. This comparison, along with the connection between women who give birth and their supposed moral orientation, come off as both judgmental and sweeping to me.
Nevertheless, if the idea is to remove negativity around the concept of dependence, I can get onboard with that.
Still, as a mother to two adopted children, I read along and thought "What about me, the woman who has never given birth?" Am I to be lumped in with men who, unlike women who birth children, cannot make the same connection to another human viscerally and literally "by lending their bodies to a child"? What if I don't have the physical strength of a man, who can therefore "fill in the breach" between those who do and those who don't give birth?
I also didn't care for the comparison of tooth veneers, which cannot be reversed, to the idea that openness to dependency is relational and regenerative, that is, open to growth. This comparison, along with the connection between women who give birth and their supposed moral orientation, come off as both judgmental and sweeping to me.
Nevertheless, if the idea is to remove negativity around the concept of dependence, I can get onboard with that.
January 7, 2026
I'm smpathetic with the thesis: women's unique biological experience, rather than being denied should be celebrated and then, somewhat paradoxically, allowed to remind us of the fundamentally interdependent condition of all human beings. This condition is the norm, and it should be accommodated, embraced. Moreover, the brute strength of men is properly put to the protection and service of the vulnerable. I found the style not to my taste. Reads like extended op eds featuring one case study after another. Perhaps that's appropriate to the subject matter, but I was hoping for something more biblical, theological, philosophical.
October 9, 2025
Lots of good crossover with Eric Schumacher's The Good Gift of Weakness and some Wendell Berry here too (though I tend to see him everywhere). I read this much faster than I was expecting so that's something too. What if our world is designed with a false anthropology? A false conception of autonomy serves no one--male or female--well. Emil Brunner once wrote that "human existence, as such, is existence in responsibility." We were created to care and be cared for. To forget or pretend that this is not the case will only serve to make us more inhumane.
September 18, 2025
billions must read!
February 20, 2026
I’m not sure why this book was framed as a feminist manifesto. I found the parts that dealt with feminism least compelling – it seems that Sargeant sees the central experience of a woman’s life as the period of pregnancy and bodily change postpartum. But I am a woman who has not yet been pregnant, yet I feel still that I am distinct from men. I’m interested in an account of womanhood that includes me; I did not feel like this one did (the other points she makes about embodied difference, like women being typically smaller or more reserved/reticent to contribute to conversation, do not include me either).
What I did find very interesting was the discussion of the problems we face when we hold up the individual, autonomous being as the ideal toward which we should strive. This is a very interesting problem, and Sargeant is completely right about it. Why do we treat pregnancy/giving birth, or aging and physical decline, as aberrations from the norm? These are utterly mundane experiences, and we should account for them in our images of what life looks like. Periods of dependance, as she calls them, are not divergences from a normal life, but part of one. I also found her examination of how to make giving/receiving care not only part of societal expectations for life but part of your own individual plan for your own life thought-provoking. I think this book will make me think more intentionally about life plans beyond personal success, and consider more centrally how I should and can provide care to others.
What I did find very interesting was the discussion of the problems we face when we hold up the individual, autonomous being as the ideal toward which we should strive. This is a very interesting problem, and Sargeant is completely right about it. Why do we treat pregnancy/giving birth, or aging and physical decline, as aberrations from the norm? These are utterly mundane experiences, and we should account for them in our images of what life looks like. Periods of dependance, as she calls them, are not divergences from a normal life, but part of one. I also found her examination of how to make giving/receiving care not only part of societal expectations for life but part of your own individual plan for your own life thought-provoking. I think this book will make me think more intentionally about life plans beyond personal success, and consider more centrally how I should and can provide care to others.
March 23, 2026
3.5 stars.
I agree with the premise of this book: that as a society we need to come to a better place of acknowledging and accepting that, as humans, we are dependent beings; there is dignity in dependence. She makes some great points and shares some shocking research. I would say that this book has changed the way see the world in some positive ways.
However, I think this book could be strengthened in three ways. Firstly, I initially found it hard to track with; I wasn’t sure where the author was going or what point she was driving towards. I think if she made more explicit and regular connection to her overarching proposition it would strengthen her argument.
Secondly, I sometimes found her tone quite brazen, and at times sarcastic and unkind.
Thirdly, this book sits under the banner “Catholic ideas for a secular world” and yet there was very little explicit reference to God or Catholic theology. As a Christian, there were many times when I was hoping for, missing, and convinced that her argument would be strengthened by reference to God - His view of humans and the world, and His love of us by the giving of His son, and how this could positively shape our society in relation to better acknowledging and accepting our dependence - on each other AND on God.
I agree with the premise of this book: that as a society we need to come to a better place of acknowledging and accepting that, as humans, we are dependent beings; there is dignity in dependence. She makes some great points and shares some shocking research. I would say that this book has changed the way see the world in some positive ways.
However, I think this book could be strengthened in three ways. Firstly, I initially found it hard to track with; I wasn’t sure where the author was going or what point she was driving towards. I think if she made more explicit and regular connection to her overarching proposition it would strengthen her argument.
Secondly, I sometimes found her tone quite brazen, and at times sarcastic and unkind.
Thirdly, this book sits under the banner “Catholic ideas for a secular world” and yet there was very little explicit reference to God or Catholic theology. As a Christian, there were many times when I was hoping for, missing, and convinced that her argument would be strengthened by reference to God - His view of humans and the world, and His love of us by the giving of His son, and how this could positively shape our society in relation to better acknowledging and accepting our dependence - on each other AND on God.
February 2, 2026
An unexpected, dense book on - paired down - why people need people and why dependence is risky yet absolutely necessary to our survival and well-being. In the author’s own words, "To treat each other justly, we must be honest about who we are. Men and women are deeply dependent creatures. We cannot build a just society on a false anthropology of independence."
December 11, 2025
I already have a list of friends I am going to lend this to!
November 3, 2025
Must read, period.
October 26, 2025
4.5 stars. I appreciated this book because it challenges people on the right and the left side of the political spectrum to imagine what a truly egalitarian society would look like. I was challenged myself, and I can't even decide which side of the spectrum I fall on anymore.
October 5, 2025
I could say so much more, but I appreciated so much how much this book looks not just at maternal caregiving, but all forms of human caregiving, as a single, initial thought on this wonderful book.
March 12, 2026
This book was like a rich dessert that is best savored slowly, but you end up gobbling it because it's just too good and you can't get enough. In a swift motion, this book twisted my brain in the best way, and I find myself in the sweet haze of letting these ideas marinate. Beyond the content itself — which is fresh, substantive, and incredibly relevant for our times — the author's tight writing style made it a pleasure to read. I'm clearly biased, but this may be one of the best books I have read in a long time.
Ilove adore her argument that the devaluation of dependency and valorization of a false independence harms women especially, but is regressive for the culture at large. Without veering into essentialism, she addresses how the biological differences between sexes shape how we conceive of our sense of autonomy, with women being "acutely aware that the boundaries of her self are fuzzily drawn". Because the built world and many of our institutions are created from the premise, or ideal of self-sufficiency, women and the sensitivity to dependence instilled in our biology are either disadvantaged or actively punished for failing to meet standards of autonomy, which have become "a false anthropology at the foundation of our culture".
"Instead of pregnancy being taken as an aberrational time, an interruption of autonomy, we can choose to see it as the foundational human experience. No one comes into the world except through radical dependence on a woman, an overwhelming need that renders her, in turn, more dependent on those around her. Pregnancy can offer a pattern for the choice to share vulnerability with others and to meet the vulnerability of others with generosity."
The author continually advocates for a feminine ethics that recognizes our inherent interdependence as human beings. She masterfully weaves in the experiences of living with disability, caring for young children, returning to a state of dependence in old age, and suffering from a limited vision of manhood in her manifesto for a more just society.
"The story of autonomy as the marker for full personhood necessarily cuts many people out of the human family. Some children will never "grow up" to be full, autonomous adults because they are marked from birth with genetic conditions that limit their physical or intellectual development. Other children seem like they'll transcend the neediness of childhood, but illness or injury thrusts them back into a life of profound need. For those... who are strong for a long time, age can still strip them of their potency, whether through profound mental or physical weakness or simply... not being equal to everything that is asked of them."
I am not in full agreement with some of the claims she makes about abortion, though I appreciate the cohesion of her arguments, which add a layer of nuance to the discussion. In the small areas where I question her claims, I am still impressed by the depth of thought and originality she brings to them. I rented this from the library to avoid overspending on books, but I will bend my rule to have this one on my shelf.
"Abandoning the false ideal of autonomy is our route back to reality. The shift is painful — we have grown accustomed to feeling guilt for being human instead of aloof and autonomous. For women, the sheer amount of work done to transcend being a woman can be internalized as empowering, not unjust... for women to fight for a world that welcomes us as women means insisting upon our reality as dependent creatures, who cannot be considered apart from those who depend on us.
I
"Instead of pregnancy being taken as an aberrational time, an interruption of autonomy, we can choose to see it as the foundational human experience. No one comes into the world except through radical dependence on a woman, an overwhelming need that renders her, in turn, more dependent on those around her. Pregnancy can offer a pattern for the choice to share vulnerability with others and to meet the vulnerability of others with generosity."
The author continually advocates for a feminine ethics that recognizes our inherent interdependence as human beings. She masterfully weaves in the experiences of living with disability, caring for young children, returning to a state of dependence in old age, and suffering from a limited vision of manhood in her manifesto for a more just society.
"The story of autonomy as the marker for full personhood necessarily cuts many people out of the human family. Some children will never "grow up" to be full, autonomous adults because they are marked from birth with genetic conditions that limit their physical or intellectual development. Other children seem like they'll transcend the neediness of childhood, but illness or injury thrusts them back into a life of profound need. For those... who are strong for a long time, age can still strip them of their potency, whether through profound mental or physical weakness or simply... not being equal to everything that is asked of them."
I am not in full agreement with some of the claims she makes about abortion, though I appreciate the cohesion of her arguments, which add a layer of nuance to the discussion. In the small areas where I question her claims, I am still impressed by the depth of thought and originality she brings to them. I rented this from the library to avoid overspending on books, but I will bend my rule to have this one on my shelf.
"Abandoning the false ideal of autonomy is our route back to reality. The shift is painful — we have grown accustomed to feeling guilt for being human instead of aloof and autonomous. For women, the sheer amount of work done to transcend being a woman can be internalized as empowering, not unjust... for women to fight for a world that welcomes us as women means insisting upon our reality as dependent creatures, who cannot be considered apart from those who depend on us.
March 10, 2026
This is my kind of feminism. It’s not a perfect book (4.5/5), but it’s so beautiful and necessary that it deserves to be read by all. Leah Libresco Sargeant is an excellent writer, and she has written a feminist manifesto that is fundamentally embodied, relational, familial, and human. It is a declaration of dependence:
“We cannot build a just society on a false anthropology of independence. We cannot have a feminism that does not begin with recognizing and rejoicing in the embodied difference between men and women, and women’s greater exposure to dependence.“
She argues that modern society is biased against women, and it is not built with them in mind, and it does not serve their flourishing. Yet, the answer to this is not to make women more like men—to free them from attachment, from their bodies, from motherhood, from dependence; it is to allow them to flourish as women. In doing so, she articulates the most beautiful account of womanhood and motherhood that I’ve read. She defends the goodness of burdening and limiting ourselves by the needs of others, of caring for those who cannot care for themselves. She attacks misogynists of all shapes and sizes, left and right, and comes out with a vision of feminine anthropology worthy of consideration.
And when she speaks of men, and their own need to depend and be depended upon, she clocks it exactly right. I resonated deeply, as she described my own desire to be bound, obligated, and responsible for the lives of others—and the difficulty, meaninglessness, and isolation that arises when we don’t have those.
Much of this book is a lament and rebuke of the hellscape we’ve created, particularly for women, but for all humans who were created to depend on one another. Yet, it’s still constructive enough to inspire meaningful change, to fan the flames of an anthropological movement, which reconciles the sexes, and reveals why we’re all here. We need the dignity of dependence.
“We cannot build a just society on a false anthropology of independence. We cannot have a feminism that does not begin with recognizing and rejoicing in the embodied difference between men and women, and women’s greater exposure to dependence.“
She argues that modern society is biased against women, and it is not built with them in mind, and it does not serve their flourishing. Yet, the answer to this is not to make women more like men—to free them from attachment, from their bodies, from motherhood, from dependence; it is to allow them to flourish as women. In doing so, she articulates the most beautiful account of womanhood and motherhood that I’ve read. She defends the goodness of burdening and limiting ourselves by the needs of others, of caring for those who cannot care for themselves. She attacks misogynists of all shapes and sizes, left and right, and comes out with a vision of feminine anthropology worthy of consideration.
And when she speaks of men, and their own need to depend and be depended upon, she clocks it exactly right. I resonated deeply, as she described my own desire to be bound, obligated, and responsible for the lives of others—and the difficulty, meaninglessness, and isolation that arises when we don’t have those.
Much of this book is a lament and rebuke of the hellscape we’ve created, particularly for women, but for all humans who were created to depend on one another. Yet, it’s still constructive enough to inspire meaningful change, to fan the flames of an anthropological movement, which reconciles the sexes, and reveals why we’re all here. We need the dignity of dependence.
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