American Woman Trivia Quiz

Answer: Emily Murphy

Emily Gowan Ferguson (1868-1933) grew up with a father who supported and encouraged equality among his children and Emily would play with her brothers and they would share some of the household responsibilities. Several members of her family held political positions or studied law, including her grandfather who was involved in the Orange Order, an uncle who was a senator, and another uncle who was a Supreme Court justice. Her husband, Arthur Murphy, was an Anglican priest, and it was during his time working as a priest that she became passionate about helping women after she witnessed some injustices that women suffered legally.

Emily was influential in the passing of the Dower Act in Alberta, which gave married women the right to a third of their husbands' property. In 1916, she was appointed as a magistrate, becoming the first woman in Canada to hold the position, but some questioned her right to sentence others since women were not legally considered persons at the time. She headed the move to change the definition of person in Canada's constitution to include women in the Persons Case. She, along with Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Henrietta Muir Edwards, became known as the "Famous Five" for their work in women's rights activism.

Answer: Rigoberta Menchú Tum

Rigoberta Menchú was born in a small Mayan community in Guatemala in 1959. During the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), she lost the members of her family to the genocide of the indigenous population, which is sometimes called the Silent Holocaust or Maya genocide. Her father died during the 1980 occupation and burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala, her mother and one of her brothers were tortured and murdered, and her other brother was shot while trying to escape after being threatened by soldiers.

Menchú began working to speak out against the government injustices and support the resistance to the oppression. In 1981, she was exiled from Guatemala and went to Mexico. In 1982, she worked with a Venezuelan author named Elisabeth Burgos, to create the book, "I, Rigoberta Menchú" ("Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia" in Spanish), which told her story and gained international attention. In exile, she continued to work as an activist and campaigned against the human rights violations being committed by the Guatemalan government. In 1992, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work.

Answer: Grace Hopper

Grace Hopper was born in New York in 1906 and died in 1992. She was a trailblazer for women in computer science, being one of the first programmers to work on the Harvard Mark I, as well as developing one of the first linkers. Unable to join the US Navy during WWII due to her age, she enlisted in the Navy Reserve in 1943, reaching the rank of rear admiral during her career.

In honor of her contributions to computer science, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, an annual conference for women technologists, began in 1994.

Answer: Virginia Apgar

Virginia Apgar (1909-1974) developed the Apgar score, which evaluates newborn babies' health based on several criteria, including their respiration, skin color, pulse, reflex irritability, and activity. In addition to being an obstetrical anesthesiologist, she was a leading teratologist, as well as making advancements in neonatology.

She worked for the March of Dimes Foundation, where she was influential in bringing attention to premature birth issues. During her lifetime, Apgar was awarded several honors, including several honorary doctorates, the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from the American Women's Medical Association, and being named Woman of the Year in Science (1973) by 'Ladies' Home Journal'.

Answer: Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor was born in New York in 1954 to Puerto Rican parents. She graduated from Princeton before earning her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1979. Before being appointed to the US Supreme Court in 2009, she served on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998-2009, and the US District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1992-1998.

When Sotomayor was appointed to the US Supreme Court, she became the third woman, and first Hispanic woman, to serve as an associate justice.

Answer: Dominican Republic

The Mirabal sisters were Patria, Dedé, Minerva, and Maria Teresa. Minerva was the first of the sisters to join the resistance against Trujillo's dictatorship. She studied law, but she was never able to get a license to practice since she had rejected Trujillo's advances toward her.

The sisters' nickname came from Minerva's underground name, "La Mariposa" (the Butterfly). In addition to other activities, they distributed pamphlets to speak against Trujillo and bring attention to those who had disappeared or been killed during his dictatorship. Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa were killed by Trujillo's men on November 25, 1960.

In 1999, the date of their death, November 25, was designated as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by the United Nations General Assembly.

Answer: Inuit art

Kenojuak Ashevak was born in an Inuit camp on Baffin Island in Canada in 1927 and died in 2013. She faced many hardships in her life, including the death of her father when she was six and the death of many of her children. Her art career began with drawings and sculptures, but her artwork expanding to include etchings, beadwork, and printings.

Some of her works have been featured postage stamps, including one of her prints, "Enchanted Owl", and her drawing "The Owl". She became a world ambassador for Inuit art and was the first Inuit artist to be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Answer: Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta was born in New Mexico in 1930. Her dad worked as a miner at the time, and later worked as a farm worker before being elected to the New Mexico legislature. Dolores not only had her dad as an example of activism, but also her mother, who actively participated in the community and different civic organizations.

In 1955, she assisted in the formation of the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization, and in 1960, she co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association. In 1962, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez.

In 1997, "Ms." magazine named Dolores Huerta as one of the year's three most important women, and she was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights in 1998. Additionally, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2012.

Answer: Doris Anderson

Hilda Doris Buck was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in 1921 and died in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2007. She began working for Chatelaine in 1951 and began rising in the ranks. When the editor stepped down, she managed to convince the publisher to give her the position, and she became the editor in 1957.

As editor, she began using the magazine as a way to bring attention to important women's issues of the day, including equal pay, abortion, child abuse, and divorce laws. After leaving the magazine in 1977, she became the chair for the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW) in 1979, and she was successful in her efforts to get women's rights included in the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Doris Anderson won many awards during her lifetime, some of which include Companion of the Order of Canada (2002), Canadian Centennial Medal (1967), and Member of the Order of Ontario (1995).

Answer: Argentina

Jorge Rafael Videla was the dictator of Argentina from 1976-1981. During his regime, a systematic plan to eliminate any resistance included the abduction of the small children and babies of anyone who opposed the government. The babies would then be raised by the government's supporters so that they would not grow up and follow in their parents' footsteps.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Las Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo) was founded in 1977 as a human rights organization focused on finding these children and returning them to their families. During the dictatorship in Argentina, about 500 children were illegally stolen. By 2017 (40 years after the group's formation), the Grandmothers had found over 120 children! The groups efforts have earned them multiple nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.