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12 The War on Women in the United States American family, constituted by one male parent, one female parent, and one or more children who are the biological offspring of those two parents. This ideology persists even in an America where the majority of families do not fi t this description. We even see in the social science literature that empirical studies of child development are based on an assumption that a unit of one parent and one child does not constitute a family (Lips, 2007). Moreover, ex- perts in progressive forms of psychotherapy point out that practitioners who work with children and families are trained in part to look at potential defi - cits within family structures that deviate from the assumed norm, sometimes to the point of not seeing the strengths of ties that exist within nonstereo- typical families (Bigner & Wetchler, 2012). Much damage has been done in assuming truth in the myth of the nu- clear family in America. At the level of personal and individual well-being, this myth perpetuates a self-perception among those who do not fi t the tra- ditional family model that they are not only different from but also less than the assumed norm. This process refl ects a psychological form of “othering” (Joffe, 2011 Said, 1978) in which those viewed as different begin to view themselves as outside of the deserving realm of privilege and equality. At a broader level, this myth affects large numbers of families when it comes to the denial of basic rights and needs in institutional settings. For instance, hospitals have differing visitation rights when an individual is considered a family member as opposed to a friend or acquaintance who is not formally recognized by the mainstream system as belonging to the patient’s family. These are all instances of discrimination that stem at least in part from nar- row defi nitions of what constitutes a family. PATHWAYS TO RESISTING DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES A main challenge in attempting to resist and ultimately subvert soci- etally held ideologies is that such resistance often must involve creating change at numerous levels, including attitudinal change, policy change, and cultural change. Attitudes are diffi cult to transform without widespread changes that motivate individuals to adapt (Wood, 2000). Additionally, cul- tural change itself is often slow to happen and typically occurs only when it is necessitated by structural upheavals, such as those brought about by a dramatic change in national leadership, extreme national economic stress, or economic changes in the workforce during and after wartime (McBride & Parry, 2016). As large changes are diffi cult to orchestrate, social change movements must acknowledge the need for small-scale changes that can ei- ther lead to larger changes over time or lay a foundation in anticipation of predicted upheavals in leadership, economics, or power. These small changes