How is "A Room of One's Own" universal?I'm sort of scraping bottom on this. I have that the book shifts identity and that the arguments she makes can extend beyond literature, but other than that...

I would think that your starting point is quite a good one.  The idea of being able to bring women's voices from margin to center is of vital importance to Woolf in her analysis.  The idea of having "one's own room" brings with it the notion that women have to reconfigure their own place within and outside the academic discourse.  This is striving to link the concept of being a woman to a larger setting than merely nation, intellectual ground, or any other limiting function.  Rather, it stresses that the one constant within all history has been the relegation of women and the silencing of their voice.  In demanding to be heard, such a vision embraces women from all backgrounds and narrative experiences in the hopes of acknowledgement from one another can lead to a shared recognition from the larger forces of society and political structure.