“Feminist manifesto” by Catholic author focuses on the dignity of dependence

Leah Libresco Sargeant is a Catholic author, speaker, wife, and mother based in Maryland. She is also a Yale University graduate, the author of several books, including Building the Benedict Option (Ignatius Press, 2018), and the leader of the “Other Feminisms” community on Substack.

Mrs. Sargeant recently spoke with Catholic World Report about her new book, The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto, published recently by Notre Dame Press.

CWR: What gave you the idea to write a book about this topic?

Leah Libresco Sargeant: My book is premised on two claims:

Women’s equality with men is not premised on our interchangeability with men.

At our core, to be human is to depend on others, not to be autonomous.

Together, these two claims offer us an alternative to a society that imagines men and women can be autonomous and judges them for falling short of this impossibility. It illuminates why this false idea of the human person will always be especially dangerous for women and children.

CWR: How did you come up with the title “The Dignity of Dependence”?

Sargeant: I like the title because it puts the controversial claims up front! I got cautionary notes about both words—for some readers, “Dignity” sounded “too Catholic,” but I wanted this book grounded in the goodness of embodiment. Other readers said it would be nicer to say “Interdependence” because “Dependence” sounded like it was about people who couldn’t give back, which they thought was a terrible thing to be.

But most of us fall into that category at some point in our lives, and I very much meant to include that period!

CWR: Who is your intended audience?

Sargeant: The book is part of Notre Dame Press’s series “Catholic Ideas for a Secular World,” which says a little about whom I intend to reach. I want this book to build bridges—to be a natural shared reading between a cradle Catholic and her secular roommate in college.

CWR: Your subtitle calls the book a feminist manifesto. How do you define feminism? And what kind of feminist are you?

Sargeant: I am a feminist because I care about how we treat women justly as women, not mistaking us for generic humans or defective men. If we’re reluctant to talk about the asymmetries between men and women, we will wind up shortchanging both.

CWR: You mention your husband and children in the book. How did they inform your approach to this topic?

Sargeant: Marriage and the family are the most common lived examples of sustained mutual dependence. My relationship with my husband is not “equal” in the sense that we do not settle up accounts evenly. We have ebbing seasons of greater or lesser needs (I obviously was on the “greater” side when I wrote this book while pregnant with my third child.).

Friendship can also take this form, but it requires more of a deliberate, countercultural choice by both friends, since it isn’t formally undertaken with vows.

CWR: What’s an example of the “radical autonomy” that you mention in the book as a contrast against dignified dependence?

Sargeant: Increasingly, we see elderly and disabled people choosing to end their lives through assisted suicide. These medically assisted suicides are now five percent of all deaths in Canada, and the number looks like it will keep climbing. In America, those who elect euthanasia more often cite the fear of burdening others as the reason they want to die rather than the pain of their terminal illness.

CWR: Your book mentions the exchange of favors and goods among Catholic moms. Why was it important for you to include this?

Sargeant: I belong to a parish community where casserole dishes shuttle between houses with every birth, and my travel car seat has been lent out for other families’ trips. Having a neighborhood listserv with some formal traditions of caring for each other (every new mom gets ten meals) makes it easier to share unanticipated needs (other families took my kids to school when I had leg surgery). Even when it’s not clear how anyone can help, we know that bringing our needs to the neighborhood means being covered in prayer.

It’s by sharing small needs regularly that you build up the friendships and community to handle big, emergency needs.

CWR: If you could say one thing to Pope Leo about feminism, what would it be?

Sargeant: I’d love to hear how he plans to speak to young people who are used to hearing discussion of the difference between men and women as a prelude to degrading either men or women. How can he pick up St. JPII’s baton of a “new feminism” today? I think just as JPII spoke of a “feminine genius,” the world today also needs to hear about a “masculine genius,” as men find that, in a more prosperous world, their greatest gift to their family is not necessarily their salary.

CWR: Who is your pick as a patron saint for Catholic feminists and why?

Sargeant: I’d certainly pick St. Edith Stein, who wrote on feminism before her death in the Holocaust. Our questions were deeply known by her. I’d also recruit St. Zelie Martin, a working mother who raised saints and became one herself in union with her husband.

CWR: If you could pick one Scripture passage to illustrate the dignity of dependence, what would it be and why?

Sargeant: When God communicates His love for us, He often turns to images of maternity. He does this again and again, but I’ll pick just this passage from Hosea:

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts
a little child to the cheek,
and I bent down to feed them.

It is as infants that we are first loved simply for being, when we cannot pay the love we receive back in kind. It’s a good image for how we are loved as creatures by our Creator.

CWR: Any final thoughts?

Sargeant: When I give book talks, I encourage my audience to ask for help with something in the next week—ideally. something you could manage by yourself, but which would be leavened by the company of a friend. The easiest way to witness to the dignity of dependence is by not making a secret of your own need for others.