Introduction -- The mother of all questions -- Silence is broken. A short history of silence ; An insurrectionary year ; Feminism: the men arrive ; One year after seven deaths ; The short happy recent history of the rape joke -- Breaking the story. Escape from the five-million-year-old suburb ; The pigeonholes when the doves have flown ; 80 books no woman should read ; Men explain Lolita to me ; The case of the missing perpetrator ; Giantess.

In this collection of essays, Solnit offers a timely commentary on gender and feminism. Her subjects include women who refuse to be silenced, misogynistic violence, the fragile masculinity of the literary canon, the recent history of rape jokes, and much more.