Working Women Trivia Quiz

Answer: artist

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a Mexican painter. Her native folk art style featured images of nature, self-portraits and Mexican artifacts. She was quoted as having said "I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality". Kahlo overcame great tragedies in her early life, i.e., polio and a debilitating traffic accident at eighteen which prevented her from going to medical school.

Instead she turned to art, and gave us a great legacy.

Answer: athlete

Professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe was born in Redding, California in 1985. She captained the successful United States' women's national soccer team. Among her amazing athletic feats are helping to win the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments, runner-up at the 2011 FIFA tournament, and winning a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

In 2019, Rapinoe was named Best FIFA Women's Player.

Answer: actress

Who? A two-time Academy Award winning actress you may never have heard of? Yes. Luise Rainer (1910-2014) was a German-American-British movie actress who was the first to win more than one Oscar. In fact, before Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks did it, Rainer was the first to be awarded back-to-back Academy Awards.

She won for her roles in "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) and "The Good Earth" (1937). In 1938 she told Louis B. Mayer she had to stop making films. She was 104 when she died.

Answer: jurist

Born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1960, Elena Kagan became the fourth woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. She was nominated in 2010 by President Barack Obama and confirmed the same year. Prior to that, after graduating from Harvard Law School, her credentials are impeccable.

She clerked for Thurgood Marshall, was Associate White House Counsel, Dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General of the United States.

Answer: criminal

If you saw the 2003 movie "Monster" starring Charlize Theron, you have been introduced to famed female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos (1956-2002). We learned about her horrifying childhood. In 1989 and 1990, Aileen was responsible for murdering seven men in Florida by shooting them at point-blank range.

While she claimed self-defense, she was found guilty of murder, sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.

Answer: mother

Nadya Suleman was born in Fullerton, California in 1975. She gained international attention in January 2009 when she gave birth to octuplets, and gained the sobriquet "Octomom". The controversy over the births was the fact that it was the result of 'assisted reproductive technology', i.e., in vitro fertilization, and that Suleman already had six other children and was on public assistance. Ironically, Suleman herself was an only child.

Answer: comedienne

It was the 1950s and women were supposed to be June Cleavers, i.e., wear pearls and high heels, vacuum and cook dinner. They were not supposed to be independent or making people laugh. Along came Phyllis Diller (1917-2012), with her wild hair, shrill laugh and self-deprecating humor (usually involving her husband, "Fang").

She made her debut in 1955 at "The Purple Onion" in San Francisco, and became a star and a household name.

Answer: entrepreneur

Madam C.J. Walker was born as Sarah Breedlove (1867-1919) in Louisiana. Her rise from poverty in the South to become the wealthiest self-made woman in America, at the time of her death, is made even more astonishing by the fact that she was a black woman! She was an entrepreneur who began her career by developing cosmetics and hair care products for African-American women. Madam C.J. Walker took her name after her former husband, Charles Joseph Walker (1851-1926).

Answer: religious leader

Not to be confused with Scientology, religious leader Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) was the founder of the religious movement called Christian Science. Her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures", detailing the tenets of the new religion, was published in 1875.

The premise argued the non-existence of the material world, and that sickness is in the mind and can be corrected by prayer. In 1879 she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist in Massachusetts.

Answer: author

French writer Anais Nin (1903-1977) was responsible for essays, novels and short stories. Nin's parents were Cuban, and she spent her early life in Cuba and Spain. She moved back to France from 1924 to 1940, at which time she emigrated to the United States. Anais began writing at eleven, and her journals discussed her private thoughts and relationships (diary-like). Among her later works are collections of erotica, e.g., "Delta of Venus" and "Little Birds".

Answer: spy

Nicknamed "The White Mouse" by the Gestapo, Nancy Wake (1912-2011) was born in Wellington, New Zealand. When World War II broke out, Nancy was living in Marseilles, France. She was horrified by the atrocities she witnessed during the fall of France to the Nazis.

She became a spy and courier for an escape network, and helped Allied airmen avoid capture. In 1943 she herself escaped to Spain and continued her work for the UK but, sadly, her husband, Henry Fiocca, was captured and executed.

Answer: politician

Women in politics has become more and more common with each passing year. In fact, in 2019, there were at least six candidates running for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, e.g., Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. Kristen Gillibrand was one of those originally in the running.

She was born in Albany, NY in 1966. In 2009 she began to serve as the junior United States Senator from New York, with Chuck Schumer as the senior senator.

Answer: journalist

Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, better known as Nellie Bly (1864-1922), was one of America's first famous female journalists. In 1888 she achieved celebrity by going around the world in 72 days, emulating Phileas Fogg from Jules Verne's novel. The year before, she pioneered the field of investigative journalism by feigning insanity and getting herself admitted to an asylum on Blackwell's Island.

She wrote of her experiences in "Ten Days in a Mad-House" which resulted in implementing reforms.

Answer: educator

Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori (1870-1952) is best known for her educational philosophy called, appropriately, the Montessori Method. Still used in schools today, the child-centered Montessori Method includes "self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play".

A woman way ahead of her time, Maria originally wanted to become an engineer but went on to medical school, later to pioneer new techniques in education.

Answer: doctor

British physician Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1901) was the first woman to achieve a medical degree in the United States. She was also the first female to be listed on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell was an outspoken social reformer and pioneer in promoting education for women interested in the field of medicine.

In 1857 she founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.