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Feminist Trivia

zuzu

I play on a pub trivia team, and one of my teammates is putting together a quiz of her own with some guys from a rival team. I mentioned to her that I’d like to see more questions about women, about women’s accomplishments, about historical events meaningful to women (not to mention more sports questions about women’s sports) in pub quizzes in general. To the extent that there are questions about people, they tend to be about men. And many of the rounds (like sports) are geared to what men are socialized to think is important.* Women aren’t exactly erased, but they’re overlooked. And if women and women’s concerns aren’t considered something worth knowing or learning about, then it’s a short step to women and women’s concerns being considered unimportant.

So, since Elizabeth agreed that more questions about women and women’s issues would be a really great and subversive way to get more people thinking about women-related factoids — because they could come up at any time on a quiz! — I’m doing a bleg for feminist trivia.

Melissa McEwan suggested Eve’s Quest, which she reviewed here, as a good source of trivia questions. But do any of you have any good sources of feminist trivia or factoids you can share with the class?

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* Despite the fact that there’s a sports round every time and my team is mostly-female and mostly-uninterested-in-your-typical-American-sports, we win frequently. It helps that the Quizmaster is from Ireland and therefore, we escape the kind of football-and-baseball-centric sports rounds that favor American men. However, the Olympics are open to both men and women, and Liam’s sports rounds still largely ignore the women.

55 thoughts on Feminist Trivia

  1. Who is the first prophet mentioned in the bible?

    Who invented the compiler? Liquid paper? The dishwasher? The windshield wiper?

    I’m sure I could come up with more at a more reasonable hour. I know these aren’t sources, just individual questions, but hey, we can play a fun feminist trivia game right here!

  4. Continuing in the Nobel Prize theme, who are the only two women to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and for what?

    Marie Curie, for her work on radiation. (duh.)

    Maria Goeppert-Mayer, for her work in nuclear shell structure.

    An aside on Goeppert-Mayer: her husband was also a physicist, a rather unremarkable one, and throughout her professional career, she was unable to get a job due to the sexism and rules against nepotism, so she worked as a volunteer for years and years, until the University of Chicago started running Argonne Lab (the U(C) was where her husband worked) and she was able to get a part time job at Argonne.

  6. check out http://www.jwa.org. The Jewish Women’s Archive has a treasure trove of historical information about jewish women online. They have a very thorough exhibit about Jewish women and second wave feminism, extensive biographies of women like emma goldman, bella abzug, and bobbie rosenfeld (talk about a kick-ass athlete!), and a “this week in history” feature with perfect, bit-sized factoids.

  8. Q: Who invented the assembly line?

    A: Esther A. Howland, of Worcester, Massachusetts, became one of the first U.S. manufacturers of valentines. In 1847, after seeing a British valentine, she decided to make some of her own. She made samples and took orders from stores. Then she hired a staff of young women and set up an assembly line to produce the cards. One woman glued on paper flowers, another added lace, and another painted leaves. Howland soon expanded her business into a $100,000-a-year enterprise.

    http://www.annieshomepage.com/valhistory.html

  9. Q. Who was the first woman to run in a U.S. Presidential campaign?
    Bonus: Who did she pick as her running mate?

    Or is that too easy?

    A. Victoria Claflin Woodhull and Frederick Douglass

  10. The Ros Franklin link does not work, but the answer is that Watson and Crick stole her photo that revealed the telltale pattern of the double-helix structure and incorporated it in their own work, allowing them to publish first.

    Watson, who I believe is still alive and certainly was two years ago, is a huge prick, and has said in private conversations that he refuses to hire fat people because of his bullshit EvoPsych witch-doctor belief that fat people are satiated and therefore don’t work hard while thin people are “hungry” for achievement as well as food. That makes as much sense as his bullshit excuse for stealing Franklin’s photo, which is that she took it but didn’t understand its implications. That’s nonsense: she went on to a hell of a distinguished career even though it was decades before the scientific establishment accepted that she made the critical leap that allowed the work on DNA to bear fruit.

  11. Actually, I think the answer is that Watson and Crick didn’t win the Nobel Prize until 1962. Franklin died in 1958. The Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.

    Other interesting things about Franklin: she didn’t actually get a degree from Cambridge, just a certificate. Women were not entitled to degrees in 1941.

  12. What article of clothing did Amelia Bloom make famous, and why? (Bloomers, because she defended women who did not want to wear cumbersome dresses all the time)

    Who is famous for imploring her husband to “Remember the ladies…remember all men would be tyrants if they could?” (Abigail Adams)

    In what year was it made illegal in the U.S. to pay men and women different wages for “equal” work? (1963)

    Who was Ida B. Wells (later Wells-Barnett)? (skilled African-American anti-lynching crusader; brought British missionaries to the U.S. south to missionize to the white “savages” that perpetrated and sanctioned lynching)

    Who was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences? (Florence R. Sabin)

    Which two supreme court cases struck down laws banning contraceptive use? What years were they decided? (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965, and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972)

  14. Admiral Grace Hopper – developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.

    Hedy Lamarr for her communications patent which makes cell phones possible.

    Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program.

    Marie Curie is the only person to win a Nobel prize in Physics and in Chemistry. She and Pierre had a daughter who won a Nobel in Chemistry. Pierre only has one in Physics.

    Murasaki wrote the Tale of Genji, which “…is sometimes called the world’s first novel, the first modern novel, or the first novel to still be considered a classic. The issue remains debated among scholars.”

    Nadia Comaneci was the first person to score a perfect 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event.

    Who was the first woman to land a triple or quadruple jump in ice skating competition?

    All references Wikipedia.

  16. evil fizz, you’re not wrong about the Nobel Prize being awarded posthumously, but that completely ignores the well demonstrated fact that James Watson and Francis Crick are tremendous assholes who consistently failed to give Ms. Franklin the credit for taking the X-ray crystallographs that made the molecular model of DNA possible. X-ray crystallography isn’t like plugging a sample into a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, it’s a difficult, finicky discipline that requires a great deal of effort to get good efforts out of. Maybe the Nobel committee would have included her in the prize awarded to Messrs. Watson and Crick, but they sure as shit haven’t.

  17. Q: In the 2004 Olympics an American won a gold medal in a sport for the first time in a hundred years. What sport and who was the athlete?
    A: Mariel Zagunis, fencing (gold medal, women’s sabre)

  19. Heh. We had Victoria Woodhull ages ago in our bar trivia game. Last night we had the first woman to earn an M.D. in the U.S and no sports questions at all, which means the heavy whining from our corner of the room whenever sports comes up may be having an effect.

  21. A bit obvious, perhaps, but…

    Who was the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court? What is the highest elected political office a woman has achieved in the United States, and who is she? Who wrote The Feminine Mystique?

  22. Who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women? When was the convention in Seneca Falls held, and for what?

  23. Yeah, I don’t know what I did to the anchor tag on the Rosalind Franklin page. I was linking here.
    (As sidenote, Little Light decided the Rosalind Franklin question sounded like a Helen Keller joke: “Why can’t Helen Keller drive? Because she’s a woman!”)

    I really like the questions that just happen to have a woman as the answer.
    – What prominent primatologist and author was murdered for their work with gorilla conservation and activism? (Dian Fossey, could also throw in the title “Gorillas In The Mist” for an easier question)
    – What animal behaviorist drew on their autistic perspective to reform slaughterhouses? (Temple Grandin)
    – What is the significance of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring”? (served as a wake-up call to the greater public and businesses regarding pollution)

  24. Q: What novel retells the King Lear story on an Iowa farm?
    A: A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley.

  25. I realise this is just speculation, as no one can know what would have happened if Franklin had lived — however I believe the Nobel prize cannot be split more than three ways, so it would have been interesting to see who of the four researchers involved (Watson, Crick, Wilkins and Franklin) would have been left out.

  26. #21: (1) Roger Taney; (2) Lady Deathstrike, supreme mutant overlord of Eastern Idaho; (3) that was the title of Carrot Top’s autobiography, right?

    #22: (1) Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay; (2) 1954 in order to discuss a fabulous new process for making cranberry juice.

  28. Couple of British Monarchy Questions (its a pub quiz after all)

    Who styled herself “Lady of the English” (not queen) and was the first female ruler of England

    Empress Matilda (or Maude) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda

    In order to prevent the return of James II and the Jacobites parliament past the Act of Settlement of 1701 naming this person heir failing the issue of Princess Anne and of William III by any future marriage.

    Sophia, Electress of Hanover

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Great_Britain

  29. Who was the first woman elected as a US Senator and from what state was she elected? (She was appointed by the governor at the time to take over for her husband, who had died. She was later elected outright by special election.)

  31. Name one of three women who were chairwomen of the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee.
    Mary Louise Smith (R)
    Jean Westwood (D)
    Debra DeLee (D)

  32. In Great Britain, The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913, which temporarily released suffragettes from custody to stop their hunger strikes only to provide for re-arrest once recovered was popularly nicknamed what?

    Cat and Mouse Act

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_and_Mouse_Act

    In 1893 this country was the first self governing country to grant women the right to vote, (though not the right to stand for election)

    New Zealand

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage
    (all sorts of good potential questions here

    Who, elected in 1917, was the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives.

    Jeanette Rankin of Montana

  33. Who was Emilie du Chatelet and why did she kick ass?

    Because she proved Newton and her lover, Voltaire, wrong about the measurement of energy. Without her E=mc2 wouldn’t exist.

  34. hmm…this isn’t an actual trivia question, but my mum’s a professor of Education, and when she’s trying to make her students understand what she means about women being systematically left out of history (and why they need to fix that in their future classroom, systemically) she makes this assignment; each person must name 30 famous women, who cannot be famous for entertainment or sports.
    It seems like everyone here can whip right through that, but for her students, they usually top out around 15- and are incredibly, incredibly shocked.
    Try it at your next dinner party.

  35. Q: Who was the first woman elected as a US Senator and from what state was she elected?

    A: Yo mama.

    In all seriousness, I’d go the literary route. Characters and authors alike.

  36. here is a trivia question:

    Q: Who was the first african-american woman to receive a baccalaureate degree?

    A: Mary Jane Patterson in 1862 from Oberlin College

    Rebecca Lee was the first African American woman to become a physician (in 1864).

    http://wrc.ua.edu/links/AAWT.pdf has alot of great information.

    Oh, one more,

    Q: Who resigned their position as President of a European nation to take the position of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights?

    A: Mary Robinson

  37. Were women systematically left out of history due to discrimination now or were they systematically forced out of history due to discrimination in the past which prevented them from doing the typical historical things like ruling, warring, and creating?

  39. sunburned counsel — in high school, we had to do that for women and for African-Americans. And maybe then just for African-American women? Anyway, it was a shocker.

  40. Here’s a shocker. I tried to do it just now — 30 women was pretty easy, but I am stuck at 20 African-Americans, even allowing Spike Lee because being a director’s a bit different from being an actor or singer.

  41. syfr has mentioned Grace Hopper’s development of the compiler – but for pub trivia, it’s also worth noting that she was the first to use the term “computer bug”. Referring to an actual moth in the computer.

    For Lauren’s literary angle:
    – What pseudonym did Charlotte Bronte use to publish “Jane Eyre”? (Currer Bell)
    – What poet was known as “the female Homer”? (Sappho)
    – What was Jane Austen’s first novel? (Northanger Abbey)
    – Who was the real Alice in Wonderland? (Alice Liddell)
    – Who was the first woman poet laureate of the U.S.? (Louise Bogan, 1945)

    And I’m sure Dorothy Parker deserves a question, but I don’t know for what.

  42. Man, you could get all kinds of interesting questions with Hedy Lamarr. “What WWII-era movie star’s undercover work and inventions in missile design helped win the war and change American military technology forever?” And then, bang-o–a woman, Pub Quiz Guys, and an awesome one.

    You could do some interesting, similar setup-gotcha questions with the military precedents set by Jeanne d’Arc.

    Hmm…you could also toss in some fun history stuff with Pharaoh Hatshepsut…I’ll keep thinking…

  44. Of course, I can’t read “Hedy Lamarr” anymore without thinking of Harvey Korman hissing, “Hedley.”

  45. Here’s one: Who is the Lord of Mann?

    One could also do real names of female writers who used male pseudonyms.

  49. Oh, and what sources that claim it was Otto Hahn don’t say that the paper produced which described the process was actually mostly written and elaborated on by Meiner, and the data behind the discovery was almost entirely analyzed by Meitner. Hahn got the Nobel Prize because anti-Semitic (and anti-woman) sentiments kept the two from putting Meitner’s name on the published paper.

  50. Yes, JackGoff, that would be. I love that bit of trivia, because, seriously – “Lord of Mann”? It’s about the most masculine-sounding title there is.

  51. It can also be spelled “Lord of Man”, which is even better. I mean, if I were Queen Elizabeth I think I’d go around saying “I’m the Lord of Man! Yeah!” about a thousand times a day.

  52. Nomie:
    I’m not sure if you meant that “Northanger Abbey” was Austen’s first published work, or first written work. It seems to be neither… She wrote “Elinor and Marianne” in 1795 (later revised and published as “Sense and Sensibility”) and “First Impressions” in 1796-7 (later revised and published as “Pride and Prejudice”). “Northanger Abbey” was written in its first form as “Susan” in 1798-9 and wasn’t published until after her death. Austen’s first published novel was “Sense and Sensibility” in 1811, and the first novel she wrote was “Love and Friendship” when she was 14.

  53. Wow, thanks everyone! (zuzu’s friend Elizabeth with the pub quiz here) These are all excellent ideas and jumping-off-points for good questions.

    Keep them coming, and I’ll keep checking back.

    Thanks!

    – E

  54. Women jockeys:
    … the first registered woman jockey, Alicia Meynell rode in York, England in 1804. More recently though, and stateside, Diane Crump became the first female jockey to mount up for the Kentucky Derby in 1970.

    But it was Julie Krone, arguably the most successful female jockey ever, who accomplished many firsts for women in thoroughbred racing. She was the fist woman to ride in more than one Kentucky Derby mounting up in both 1992 and 1995, the fist woman to ride in the Breeders’ Cup (a major, but not Triple Crown, race) and – most importantly – the first woman to win a Triple Crown race – the 1993 Belmont Stakes with “Colonial Affair.”

  55. You’re quite welcome, Elizabeth. My bar-trivia team is all-female, and we get extremely pissy about sports questions even though we win quite regularly. We still talk, with some bemusement, about the time two of us were at our Thursday-night game (there’s four of us altogether, but two don’t do Thursdays), won against teams of up to five players and got, as our prize – basketball tickets. We won a prize that every single other team in that bar would have been happier to win than we were.
    Our full team was also accused of cheating once. Hell, if we were cheating we’d have been doing much better on geography questions, at which we also suck.

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