Once described by Simone de Beauvoir as France s most exciting feminist writer, the sociologist Christine Delphy was a central figure in French feminism, and one of the first to focus on the structural importance of the family in understanding women s oppression. "Close to Home" is her classic study of the family, patriarchal ideologies, and the politics and strategy of the women s liberation movement. Debating whether men can be feminists, whether bourgeois and heterosexual women are retrogressive members of the women s movement, and how best to struggle against the multiple oppressions women endure, "Close to Home" remains as relevant today as when it was published in the seventies."