Born in 1959 to a middle-class family, Laurence Barraque grows up with her sister in the northern city of Rouen. Her father is a doctor, her mother a housewife. She understands from an early age, by way of language and her parents' example, that a girl's place in life is inferior to a boy's: Asked for the 1964 census whether he has any children, her father promptly responds, 'No. I have two daughters.' When Laurence eventually becomes a mother herself in the 90s, she grapples with the question of what it means to be a girl, to have a girl, and what lessons she should try to pass down or undo.
