Guiding Questions: 

1. Reflect on a time when you have had your own experience of “Why me” or a moment that has changed your life’s course and express through a medium that best illustrates that moment for you.

2. On page 39, Elliott compares what she perceives of as normal shame with her own experience as “not normal shame”. Journal your own emotional response reading this passage and your reflections on experiences of shame.

3. Find three examples (sentence, paragraphs) of gender stereotypes described in the text. Explain why you picked those three.

4. What impact do those stereotypes have on different people’s sense of identity, self, opportunities/experiences in life?

5. Describe a time when you felt stereotyped and a time when you were freed from a stereotype. Compare and contrast those experiences through an expressive medium.

6. Are there examples in your discipline of study where checklists are used to collect information about a person who is a student, family member or client? What critique might you provide for “standard practice” in your own field as a result of Elliott’s rendering of her experience of an “intake” interview? What promising changes are emerging in your field?

7. Journal your responses to her depiction of motherhood, including the ways women experience being or naming a “bad mother” versus being “enough”. How does this parallel your own experience in a significant social role?