Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis

The author introduces readers to her own personal history. This is invaluable in order to best understand the nature of her own theoretical and practical work. Her parents were a couple and they were trying to make it so that the mother could stay home with the children. There were seven of these 'little people' in the family. She writes that her parents were, as far as she could tell, trying to live a patriarchal ideal. Doing so, she felt, forced the family to forgo further resources, particularly material and financial ones.

Next, the author explains to readers how much she felt like an outsider within her own family. She wanted to belong; she wanted this very much. Even so, she frequently met with conflicts within her family. She questioned her father's right to dish out discipline and violence even though...