what an atrocious book. I would give it zero stars if I could. I had high hopes after reading the first essay, but it careened downhill from that point. I'm not going to go into too much detail about why it's bad, simply because I do not want to flip through the pages I marked and relive the mediocrity.
some low-points:
-problematic language surrounding survivors of sexual violence
-disparaging remarks about women who wear burkas/religious coverings
-at one point she said "Republic of Menistan" and honestly I don't even know what to make of that, I think it was trying to be comedic but I don't understand what she meant by that and it seems derogatory in some way.
-extremely self-serving, all throughout the book, but in particular the essay "Woolf's Darkness" which served as a self-promotion for her other works and her interactions with famous writers and artists
-lacked any footnotes or citations. I understand Solnit is not a feminist theorist, and I do not believe that you have to be an expert to make a contribution, but if it's not your field, you need to cite to people who have already done this work and made the points you are making. In speaking about her own moments of erasure by male academics and acquaintances, Solnit often erases the work of prominent theorists and authors.
-the final, and in my opinion, the worst part of this collection of essays was the whitewashing of feminism. no mention was made of the nuanced experiences of women of color, or of how mainstream feminism historically, and often currently, ignores women of color and/or disparages their experiences. Solnit put on her rose colored glasses to talk about modern feminism and in the process, ignored some major issues in the movement today and gave too much credit to the historical feminist movement, which maybe had some great moments, but for the most part was exclusionary and not all-encompassing
That's the main issue with this collection, I think--Solnit believes that feminism is "one size fits all" and that "women" is a homogeneous category where advances for one means advances for all. Don't read this book, there are better surveys of feminism out there.