Why Is a raised negative number less than 1 but not Negative

    In math, there is a a problem that looks like this 5^-2= 1/25. The question why is this problem not negative. This is not negative because if you look closely you will see this ^. That means multiply. So it would be a negative times a negative equals a positive. Then why is it less than one. If you multiply -5 x -5 it equals 25. That is the denominator on the fraction. So the fraction is 1/25. That is where the one comes from.
    This was a little bit challenging for me because at first I didn't know how to do this.