Womens History / Feminism Trivia

1. The term "feminism" was coined by a man in 1837 - a French utopian socialist who believed that there were 810 types of people, and that the sea would turn to lemonade. What was his name?

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Charles Fourier

In his 1837 work "Théorie des quatre mouvements et des destinées générales", Charles Fourier used the term "feminism." After calculating that there were 810 types of people, Fourier conceived of an ideal society in which there would be 1,620 people per social unit and 6 million of these units. He was an early supporter of women's rights - never marrying due to ideological opposition - and of gay rights.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Venus of Willendorf

The voluptuous but diminutive Venus of Willendorf, a limestone statuette a mere 4½ inches (11 cm) high, dates from the Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period), perhaps around 25,000 BCE, and was discovered in Austria in 1908. By and large anthropologists have conjectured that this figurine and others like it found throughout Europe are either fertility fetishes or mother goddesses, the assumption being that these were considered attractive, desirable figures. Dissenting anthropologists Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott, however, have argued that the underlying assumption has been that these were carved by men looking at women, and they have suggested rather these were carved by women looking at themselves. The body parts, particularly the shape of the breasts and the belly, are how they might appear as one looks down on oneself (lacking a mirror otherwise by which to see). The mysterious Venus of Willendorf resides in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

From Quiz Women's Lib: Ride the Second Wave!

Answer: 1848-1920

The First Wave began with the Women's Rights Conference at Seneca Falls, NY, and it ended with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 -- giving women the right to vote universally in the United States. The first wave is often called the Suffragist Movement because by the end of it, it had been reduced, to an extent, to the one issue of suffrage (the right to vote). The period in between has traditionally been considered "dead", but revisionist scholars look at it differently. (But that's a subject for another quiz!)

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: A woman who has never married compared to a man who has never married

The report, published in 2009, declared that overall, women's income was 80% of that earned by men. This was up from 62% thirty years earlier. However, there were considerable differences in this wage gap depending on the demographic that the woman fell into. Women aged between 35 and 44, on average earned 77% of the amount that men of the same age earned. For older women the gap was greater, although it was smaller for the 25-34 age group and smallest, with a gap of just 9%, for the 16-24 group. The smallest gap came when women who had never married were compared against their male equivalents. On average the women in this group earned more than 94% of the salary commanded by their male equivalents, although the average wage for unmarried men and woman is significantly smaller than that of married men and women.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Soviet Union

Under Lenin, the Soviet Union ensured a woman's right to bodily autonomy, although not necessarily for the right reasons. The Bolsheviks saw abortion as a temporary solution to the problem that families may not be able to take care of additional children due to various conflicts that had destabilized the country. Stalin criminalized abortion, and it remained criminalized until his death. Today, a number of modern countries inherit legalized abortion from the Soviet Union. In modern Russia, abortion is not decriminalized - instead, legalized abortion is only available to most women up to 12 weeks, by which point not all will be aware that they are pregnant.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1643) was the premier artist of the Flemish Baroque school, and a student of anatomy and medicine. Although he painted religious and mythological subjects as well as landscapes, he is remembered most for his sensual paintings of Rubenesque or Rubensian women, including 'Amor and Venus' (1614), 'Venus at the Mirror (1615), and The Three Graces (1635). Rubens associated physical strength and presence with moral strength. By the time we are well into the Industrial Age, artistic attitudes had changed. The ladies painted by William-Adolphe Bougerau (1825-1900), for example, are slim cupids, indeed. The Rubensian women are not pear-shaped but apple-shaped, with a waist-to-hip ratio which by the 21st century became associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

From Quiz Women's Lib: Ride the Second Wave!

Answer: Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

Griswold v. Connecticut was the first decision in which Justices explicitly discussed "zones of privacy" guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Eisenstadt v. Baird concerned contraception for *unmarried* couples. Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion. United States v. Virginia dealt with the admission of women to the Virginia Military Institute, the oldest and one of the best military colleges in the USA.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Abigail Adams

She was an early feminist and well aware of the need for Women's Rights.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Property-owning and over 30

Parliament were concerned in 1918 that women would "outnumber" men in the voting pool, and so also enfranchised men who did not own property - a regressive reason for a progressive change. A 1928 law finally granted suffrage to all women over 21, while the voting age was eventually reduced to 18. However, voting rights are still not available to 16- and 17-year-olds, to imprisoned people, most foreign residents and expats of over 15 years.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Anne

Queen Anne reigned for just twelve years, but during that time England arose as a world power from the endless wars in Europe, the question of whether England would remain Protestant was settled, and England (including Wales) and Scotland united to form Great Britain. (In 1801, this became the United Kingdom; Great Britain now properly refers to the island which comprises England, Scotland, and Wales). Queen Anne herself was ill and overweight, and grieving over twelve miscarriages and three children who did not survive her. It seems that historians, academic and especially popular, remain fixated on Anne's body, although some of this comes from 18th-century Whig writers and politicians like Roger Coke and John Clerk who described her as monstrously fat, red-faced, and a compulsive eater and addict to hot cocoa. In general, however, she has been described in the most unflattering terms, either as a weak over-eater, or a once-attractive woman whose multiple pregnancies ruined her figure. Usually, those who emphasize her fatness imply incompetence, whereas those who defend her intelligence and political shrewdness tend to minimize her appearance, as though a queen could not be both fat and sharp. In the black comedy "The Favourite" (2018), she was depicted as both lustful and gluttonous, though not quite so fat. When Queen Anne was crowned, she could not walk to Westminster Abbey but had to be carried by sedan chair. When she died, she was placed in a coffin described by a contemporary as "almost square", pulled by fourteen horses, and then carried by fourteen men.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Maya Lin

Her design was controversial when first unveiled. Now it is recognized as a brilliant concept.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Foot binding

The practice was opposed by Christian missionaries and Chinese activists. The movement to abolish it focused on pragmatic reasons such as health and labor efficiency, rather than feminist or religious reasons, to achieve widespread popularity. Female genital mutilation and breast ironing have - thankfully - never been part of Chinese culture, but remain modern issues in other countries. Honor killing did take place in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), but was no longer prevalent by 1949.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Victoria

As a child, Victoria was restricted in what she could eat, sometimes only bread and milk, but she vowed that when she became queen, she would eat whatever she liked, and mutton every day. And so it came to pass! Royal breakfasts would include porridge, fish, eggs on toast, "fancy breads", and smoked haddock, even leftover partridge or quail. She ascended the throne in 1837, and by the 1840s, at least one physician had observed that her shape had become "more like a barrel than anything else". Weighing merely 7 stone (98 lbs or 44 kg) on her wedding day, she had acquired a BMI of 32 by the 1880s and a waist of 50" (127 cm) by end of the century. All this on a 5'1" (155 cm) frame. When advised to reduce, she simply ate patented dietetic foods on top of everything else (not unlike dieters of the modern era). A popular song mocking both the queen and her prince consort Albert went, "He comes to take 'for better or for worse' / England's fat queen and England's fatter purse". A generally voracious person, her honeymoon with Albert was, shall we say, not describable in a family web site! Despite the queen's obesity, as the nineteenth century progressed, concern with overeating and with becoming too curvy grew. Victorians connected food with sex, and girls and women were encouraged to eat abstemiously as a sign of moral and physical fitness. Queen Victoria herself restricted her daughters' diets. "Edacious", by the way, means "given to eating".

From Quiz Women Warriors for Equality

Answer: Jeanne Marie Pouchoulin Goegg

In 1868, Marie Goegg, authored a piece in a journal titled "The United States of Europe". In the article Marie wrote about how there needs to be a separate peace society for women, since men had established their own one year earlier in Geneva named The International League for Peace and Liberty. Marie also insisted in her published piece that ladies have an equal voice within the International League for Peace and Liberty (IPL); which they would a year later.

From Quiz Women's Lib: Ride the Second Wave!

Answer: They threw girdles, makeup, saucepans, and curlers into a trash can.

You picked the bra-burning didn't you? It never happened! After throwing "instruments of female torture" into the trash can, they had planned to burn them but the police prevented them. (Despite this, the misrepresentation of the "bra-burning feminist" took hold in news media eager to trivialize the issues.) Although they did manage to get inside the convention hall and unfurl a banner and shout slogans, they did not cause any delays or prevent contestants from entering, or injure anyone. They also crowned a sheep in protest.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Jackie Cochran

She was a 'high flyer' and a fashion maven!

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Evita

Eva, nicknamed Evita, served as First Lady for six years, supporting her husband Juan Domingo Perón. She was considered for the Vice Presidential role, and immensely popular among working-class women, but did not wish to run. The other options are all musicals involving Andrew Lloyd Webber or Tim Rice, who co-wrote Evita.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Lillian Russell

Lillian Russell was known in song as the "airy, fairy Lillian, the American Beauty", and the most popular rose in America was named after her. She was an ardent supporter of the enfranchisement of women, as her mother was. Around 1912 she began writing a newspaper column and giving lectures. And she supported the Actors' Equity strike of 1919. Lillian Russell's ample figure was made hourglass-shaped in a corset, but like Queen Victoria, she had an enormous appetite that often shocked those who met her, in defiance of conventions of female abstemiousness. One man who served Russell and Diamond Jim Brady at Delmonico's in New York observed that she ate more than her companion. Although dance-hall women were admired for being voluptuous in the 1880s, the expectations for upper-class women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries grew more slender as the 1900s became the 1910s and '20s. And even when plump women were admired, the 18-inch waist (created by a stiff corset) was idealized, even when it restricted breathing and caused fainting.

From Quiz Women's Lib: Ride the Second Wave!

Answer: San Diego State College (now San Diego State University)

It is now possible to get a Ph.D. in Women's Studies in the USA. You can also get Ph.D.s in more traditional disciplines, but specialize in area like women's history, gender and sexuality, and so forth. Very few institutions of higher learning lack some kind of specialized study (be it a department, an institute, a certification, etc.) in women's issues.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: 53 cents

African-American women did a bit better in the 1998 wage study. They earned 64 cents for every dollar earned by a white male.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: bell hooks

hooks takes her name from her great-grandmother, and uses lowercase both to differentiate herself from her namesake, and to de-emphasize the role of herself as an author, so that her writing can speak for itself. In "Ain't I a Woman?" (named for a Sojourner Truth speech), for instance, she explores the oppression of Black women slaves in America and how the early feminist movement was largely exclusionary of non-white and working class women. Other books of hers explore lighter and more diverse topics, such as "All About Love," an analysis of love and romantic relationships.

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates won Best Actress for playing a deranged fan who rescues but then imprisons and tortures her favorite author for weeks in 'Misery' (1991). When Hattie McDaniel won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Mammy in 'Gone with the Wind' (1939), she was the first African American to win any Oscar. Octavia Spencer won Best Actress for her role in 'The Help' (2011), and Mo'Nique played a despicably abusive mother for her Best Supporting Actress award in 'Precious' (2009). What these roles have in common is that they are either villains (Bates and Mo'Nique) or servants (McDaniel and Spencer), which many authors have observed is a reflection of the narrow space carved out for wide-bodied women in Hollywood, despite decades of activism in size acceptance since the 1960s.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Harriet Tubman

She wore men's clothing and carried a revolver in order to be safe while doing this dangerous work.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister for a number of years before her assassination in 1984, and the third person to hold the role. She assumed the position when winning a leadership election of the Indian National Congress and continued in the role after an election the following year. In China, Soong Ching-ling soon followed in 1968 as an appointed woman head of state of a highly populous country. Benazir Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988, a country in which Malala Yousafzai was later shot as a child for fighting for girls to attend school.

From Quiz Women Warriors for Equality

Answer: Olympe de Gouges

Olympe de Gouges public support for equality for not only females, but anybody who was being disenfranchised in a society dominated by wealthy French men. This would lead to a lot of threats and hostile heckling when she would speak publicly. It would be her criticism of dictator Maximilien Robespierre, and the guillotining of Louis XVI that became the catalyst for her own death by hanging in 1793.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Frances Perkins

She was Secretary of Labor during Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration.

From Quiz Feminism 'Round the World

Answer: 1993

Unfortunately, as in many countries, ignorance around marital rape is prevalent, with almost half of South African respondents failing to recognize that being raped by a spouse is possible in 2010. (https://web.archive.org/web/20160304191608/http://www.alnap.org/pool/files/13452-begin-war-at-home.pdf)

From Quiz A Woman of Substance

Answer: BBW

BBW stands for Big, Beautiful Woman, and it was a term applied to the person and to the magazine, which also began its own merchandising line, conducted model searches, provided a friendship service, and held annual fashion shows. The magazine industry being a brutal one, 'BBW' ceased publication in the late 1990s, but in the 2000s it re-emerged as an online-only publication. The acronym is actually trademarked, although it is a term that became frequently used on the Internet and in social media, in both positive and disparaging ways. The focus of 'BBW' changed from being primarily a fashion magazine to include articles about personal growth and even some addressing obesity research.

From Quiz Women's History and Facts

Answer: Clara Barton

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