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Quiz about Women Write on Womens Rights
Quiz about Women Write on Womens Rights

Women Write on Women's Rights Trivia Quiz


In honor of Women's History Month, have a go at some of the letters, speeches, and thoughts of women on women's rights (and a book or two besides). Read slowly and carefully; even if you are unfamiliar with the works, you might guess one or two.

A multiple-choice quiz by gracious1. Estimated time: 6 mins.
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Author
gracious1
Time
6 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
354,640
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
250
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
Last 3 plays: xchasbox (5/10), Guest 51 (10/10), Davo8 (9/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. This sixteenth-century author was the first woman to write a full-length polemic against male supremacy and female subjection in the English language. Her defense of womankind fervent, what was this pioneering writer's hostile-sounding name? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. In a series of letters written 1775-76 from Braintree, Massachusetts this future first lady counseled her husband to "Remember the Ladies" in "the new Code of Laws". "Do not," she wrote, "put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could....Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex." Who wrote this? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. In the Age of Enlightenment, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a treatise calling for women's education and development of reason. In her lengthy dedication to Bishop of Autun, she wrote, "Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be with respect to its influence on general practice." What is the name of this famous work? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. The world's first woman sociologist preferred to take a scientific approach to the woman question: "It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature."

Who was this 19th-century philosopher and social scientist?
Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. This lady founded an organization whose Declaration of Principles states, among other things, "We believe that God created both man and woman in His own image, and therefore, we believe in one standard of PURITY for both men and women, and in the equal right of all to hold opinions and to express the same with equal freedom." [Emphasis added].

She also wrote in a speech, "Let us not be disconcerted but stand bravely by that blessed trinity of movements--Prohibition, Woman's Liberation, and Labor's Uplift". Now, which lady, and which group?
Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...".

"The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of tyranny over her...
"He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice...
"He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.
"He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.
"He has made her morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband...
"He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her....

What is the name of the document from which these quotes are extracted? (Think of another famous American document that sounds like this.)
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. "The basic freedom of the world is the woman's freedom. A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.... No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother".

Who wrote these daring words in 'Woman and the New Race' in 1920?
Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. "From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation," wrote this unabashed freethinker, "the Bible has been used to hold her in the 'divinely ordained sphere'". In the introduction to "The Woman's Bible" (1895), a two-volume work of Biblical criticism and exegesis, she further wrote: "Listening to the varied opinions of women, I have long thought it would be interesting and profitable to to get them clearly stated in book form." Who was this suffragist who worked with Susan B. Anthony on women's right to vote? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. This French existentialist philosopher wrote 'The Second Sex' (1949), which analyzes 1000 years of the subjection of women as second-rate persons. The Vatican condemned it, and the English translation was expurgated. Who wrote this controversial critique? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. What book about "the problem that has no name" is usually credited with sparking the Second Wave of Feminism in the USA in the 1960s? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. This sixteenth-century author was the first woman to write a full-length polemic against male supremacy and female subjection in the English language. Her defense of womankind fervent, what was this pioneering writer's hostile-sounding name?

Answer: Jane Anger

Very little information exists on this pioneering author, other than she wrote the pamphlet 'Jane Anger Her Protection for Women', published in 1589 in response to the misogynistic text 'Thomas Orwin Book His Surfeit in Love'. Rarely in 16th century did women write publicly on non-religious or non-domestic themes, much less question male supremacy. Jane Anger's name, which may have been a pseudonym, was apt, because she voiced a fervor if not a rage against patriarchy, making her possibly the first female polemicist, if not the first feminist, in English literature. (A polemicist is a writer skilled in disputation or argument, usually attacking or defending a doctrine or practice). Educational opportunities were very limited for women in the early modern period, making the quality of the pamphlet all the more remarkable.

"To all Women in generall," begins the 'Protection for Women', "and gentle Reader whatsoever. FIE on the falshoode of men, whose minds goe oft a madding, & whose tongues can not so soone bee wagging, but straight they fal a railing. Was there ever any so abused, so slaundered, so railed upon, or so wickedly handeled undeservedly, as are we women?"
2. In a series of letters written 1775-76 from Braintree, Massachusetts this future first lady counseled her husband to "Remember the Ladies" in "the new Code of Laws". "Do not," she wrote, "put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could....Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex." Who wrote this?

Answer: Abigail Adams

In May 1776, Abigail complained, "...whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember," she warned, "that Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken." Her husband Adams was not supportive and actually argued in another letter to James Sullivan that if they let men without property vote, they would have to let women and children vote.
3. In the Age of Enlightenment, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a treatise calling for women's education and development of reason. In her lengthy dedication to Bishop of Autun, she wrote, "Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be with respect to its influence on general practice." What is the name of this famous work?

Answer: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Some argued that education would make more women masculine, to which Mary Wollstonecraft replied:
"If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively termed mankind;- all those who view them with a philosophic eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine."

Because of her scandalous conduct, Wollstonecraft was not looked upon with favor in her time, and was often left out of early histories of feminism.

Wollstonecraft not only wrote 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', but she was a literary creator of another sort. She was the mother of Mary Shelley, who wrote 'Frankenstein', the first modern science fiction novel.
4. The world's first woman sociologist preferred to take a scientific approach to the woman question: "It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." Who was this 19th-century philosopher and social scientist?

Answer: Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) translated Auguste Comte, the French philosopher who founded sociology as well as positivism, an approach to the study of society using such scientific evidence as experiments, statistics, and qualitative methods. Martineau also wrote on economics and sought to popularize laissez-faire capitalism (i.e. largely unregulated).

Like Mary Wollstonecraft, Martineau deplored the state of education for women. In 'Society in America' (1937), Martineau wrote: "The intellect of women is confined by an unjustifiable restriction of... education.... As women have none of the objects in life for which an enlarged education is considered requisite, the education is not given.... The choice is to either be 'ill-educated, passive, and subservient, or well-educated, vigorous, and free only upon sufferance."
5. This lady founded an organization whose Declaration of Principles states, among other things, "We believe that God created both man and woman in His own image, and therefore, we believe in one standard of PURITY for both men and women, and in the equal right of all to hold opinions and to express the same with equal freedom." [Emphasis added]. She also wrote in a speech, "Let us not be disconcerted but stand bravely by that blessed trinity of movements--Prohibition, Woman's Liberation, and Labor's Uplift". Now, which lady, and which group?

Answer: Frances Willard, Woman's Christian Temperance Movement

Hope you got the hints from the capitalized "PURITY" and the mention of "Prohibition"! Frances Willard (1839-1898) was actually more radical than many of the women who joined her group, many of whom thought that women's suffrage was too daring a cause. (Willard sneaked in gender equality in her principles, which ends with a pledge to refrain from alcohol.) But prohibition was but a piece of Willard's "Do Everything" vision that saw suffrage and many other reforms as all connected for the uplift of working women and men and middle-class women alike. One of her most lasting accomplishments was the raising of the age of consent to protect girls (and boys) from sexual predators.
6. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...". "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of tyranny over her... "He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice... "He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. "He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns. "He has made her morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband... "He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed against her.... What is the name of the document from which these quotes are extracted? (Think of another famous American document that sounds like this.)

Answer: The Declaration of Sentiments

Did you notice that it parallels the Declaration of Independence in many respects? It is in fact the Declaration of Sentiments, as read by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, also known as the Woman's Rights Convention. The statements are true; under the law, a woman had no civil rights, and yes, if she committed a crime in her husband's presence, *he* was responsible. Moreover, women had to pay taxes and did not have rights to their children in case of divorce, at least not in New York State and indeed in most states of the Union.

By the way, notice the use of the singular. It was common practice in the nineteenth century to speak of 'woman' (like 'man') rather than women.
7. "The basic freedom of the world is the woman's freedom. A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.... No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother". Who wrote these daring words in 'Woman and the New Race' in 1920?

Answer: Margaret Sanger

Sanger wrote this in "Woman and the New Race" to explain why birth control is a woman's problem and why women must take control of it and not leave it to men or to the State to decide how to control the population. She argued that if women cannot control their own fertility, all the other freedoms and rights are meaningless. In the 21st century, Sanger has been criticized for using racialized rhetoric and espousing eugenics, but her legacy of family planning and reproductive healthcare remains in the organization known today as Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. (PPFA).

Sanger wrote: "She who earns her own living gains a sort of freedom that is not to be undervalued, but in quality and in quantity it is of little account beside the untrammeled choice of...being a mother or not being a mother...

"Look at it from any standpoint you will...,woman is in the same position, fundamentally, until she is able to determine for herself whether she will be a mother and to fix the number of her offspring."
8. "From the inauguration of the movement for woman's emancipation," wrote this unabashed freethinker, "the Bible has been used to hold her in the 'divinely ordained sphere'". In the introduction to "The Woman's Bible" (1895), a two-volume work of Biblical criticism and exegesis, she further wrote: "Listening to the varied opinions of women, I have long thought it would be interesting and profitable to to get them clearly stated in book form." Who was this suffragist who worked with Susan B. Anthony on women's right to vote?

Answer: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Woman's Bible is an annotated Bible edited by Stanton and a committee of 26 other women. Stanton herself had strong feelings on the subject:
"The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death unto the world, that she precipitated the fall of her race.... Marriage... was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, ...and for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire upon the vital questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home. Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up".

Stanton's opinion notwithstanding, many of the other editors found much to admire in the Bible, which covers most, though not all, of the books in the Protestant canon of the Bible. It's an interesting read whatever one's religious beliefs.
9. This French existentialist philosopher wrote 'The Second Sex' (1949), which analyzes 1000 years of the subjection of women as second-rate persons. The Vatican condemned it, and the English translation was expurgated. Who wrote this controversial critique?

Answer: Simone de Beauvoir

Some critics called 'The Second Sex' pornography, and the Holy See placed it on its infamous Index of Forbidden Books. Not until 2009 was there a truly faithful Engilsh translation.

'The Second Sex' was Simone de Beauvoir's most famous book, perhaps, but she wrote many others, including a whopping four autobiographies, and travel books like 'America Day by Day' (1948). She wrote existential fiction such as 'All Men are Mortal' (1946), and her novel 'The Mandarins' (1954) won the Prix Goncourt. She also supported Hungary's struggle for independence and spoke against the Vietnam War.
10. What book about "the problem that has no name" is usually credited with sparking the Second Wave of Feminism in the USA in the 1960s?

Answer: The Feminine Mystique

Betty Friedan wrote 'The Feminine Mystique' after surveying her former classmates of Smith College for the 15th anniversary reunion. Dismayed that so many were unhappy with their lives as housewives, she coined the term "feminine mystique" to describe the false assumptions that her classmates had that they would find fulfillment through homemaking, childcare, and sex, and the belief that many psychologists and other prominent voices had at the time that women should have no political opinions or outside careers, or even an education beyond the very basic. Friedan called the dissatisfaction that many of her classmates felt "the problem with no name", a sort of anomie that the subjects of her study could not quite articulate, and that Friedan blamed on the restriction of women to the domestic sphere and their inability to get their needs met, particularly the highest need (according to pyschologist Abraham Maslow) of self-actualizaion. Friedan argued that to overcome "the problem with no name" women require what men require: education and meaningful work as well as a happy family, sex, and home life.
Source: Author gracious1

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