If you think we weren’t scared, think again. We each have a long list of very realistic reasons to believe that we can’t – without extreme diminishment – survive the loss of the other.



Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the author of Confessions of A Young Philosopher (forthcoming), which is a woman's "confession" in the tradition of Augustine and Rousseau. She writes a weekly online column, "Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column" along with "Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Podcast," where she explains why women's lives are highly interesting. Many of her articles are accessible at https://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/AbigailMartin. She edited The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes's Secret; Spinoza's Way by her father, the late Henry M. Rosenthal. She is married to Jerry L. Martin, also a philosopher. They live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She can be reached a dearabbiesilvousplait@gmail.com.We live under the sheltering umbrellas of our worldviews. To the point where we would feel naked if we were caught in the street without them.

Do men and women now treat each other better than they once did? The feminist revolution peeled off the conventions that used to govern relations between the sexes. Yet man-woman relations seem never to have been in worse shape, the exaggerations from the #MeToo movement matched by the vileness of powerful men who’ve targeted vulnerable women.

A New York firefighter once told me that his training required walking into the fire, since it’s easier fought from inside. Walking into the fire is exactly what Phyllis Chesler does in her memoir . . .