Maybe it's the format of Very Short Introductions, but I found myself not trusting the author in the least. It ruined the book for me. Walters presents the book in an academic, disinterested tone, but spends the entirety of it making value judgments. "So-and-so's writing is clear and poignant, and despite being written 500 years ago, still resonates strongly with women today." In fact, the whole book seems to read like a "how not to write on Wikipedia" article; it's chocked full of weasel words, and often makes references to "a recent scholar" who has "convincingly argued" something --- but doesn't tell us who that scholar was, or what their convincing argument looks like! And if you wanted footnotes to do any research for yourself, well, you're out of luck! None of this is to say that one mustn't make value judgments. If Walters had put herself into the book, saying that /she/ found so-and-so's writing clear and poignant, I'd be all for it.