Battle of the Sexes
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50 free Battle of the Sexes trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Battle of the Sexes is one of the oldest party formats there is: split the room into men and women, then ask each side about the things the other side is supposed to know. The fun is in how often the stereotype fails. Plenty of men know their way around a recipe or a wardrobe, and plenty of women can talk engines and end zones. This quiz mixes three kinds of question. One set comes from territory traditionally filed under "hers": fashion, beauty, baking, romance films and classic novels. Another comes from "his": tools, cars, grilling, action movies and the sports page. The third is about men and women themselves, from odd differences in nature to the pioneers who were told that a job, a race or a ballot was not for them, and the famous 1973 tennis match played under the same banner. It is written for a mixed crowd: a youth group night, a couples' shower, a family reunion or a classroom warm-up. Keep score by team, or hand each side the questions meant for the other and see who really knows more. Every answer comes with a short explanation, and the full set can be printed for a pen-and-paper round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which color did most big US stores recommend for baby boys in a 1927 Time magazine chart?
Pink
Pink was the pick for boys at six of the ten stores Time listed, against four for blue; pink for girls only became the settled rule in the mid-20th century.
Q 02Which women's fashion staple began with Persian cavalrymen keeping their feet in the stirrups?
High heels
High heels arrived in Europe with Persian envoys in the early 1600s as a sign of masculinity and rank, and France's Louis XIV wore them at court.
Q 03Which sideline activity began as an all-male pursuit at the University of Minnesota in 1898?
Cheerleading
Cheerleading stayed male for decades: Minnesota first let women join in 1923, and they only took over the sidelines when college men were drafted for World War II.
Q 04Which tennis champion beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes" at the Houston Astrodome?
Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King won in straight sets before an estimated 90 million TV viewers worldwide, four months after Riggs had beaten Margaret Court.
Q 05In which small fish does the male carry the eggs in a pouch and give birth to the young?
Seahorse
Seahorse fathers take up to 1,500 eggs from the female, typically give birth at night and are ready for the next batch by morning.
Q 06The circle-and-cross symbol for female was borrowed by Carl Linnaeus from the sign for which planet?
Venus
Venus lent its sign to female flowers and Mars lent its sign to male ones when Linnaeus began marking plants with planetary symbols in the 1750s.
Q 07Which facial hair style is named, with its syllables swapped, after an American Civil War general?
Sideburns
Sideburns flip the name of Ambrose Burnside, whose whiskers ran from his ears into his moustache while his chin stayed clean-shaven.
Q 08Which retired Monopoly token did fans vote back into the game in 2022?
Thimble
The Thimble had been retired with the Boot and the Wheelbarrow to make room for new tokens including a rubber duck and a T-Rex, and it took the dinosaur's place on its return.
Q 09What does the WD stand for in WD-40, a spray first made to protect Atlas missiles from rust?
Water displacement
Water displacement was the aim, and the 40 suggests the chemists only got the recipe right with their 40th formula.
Q 10In which insect do only the females bite, needing the protein in blood to produce their eggs?
Mosquito
Mosquito males live on nectar and plant juices, and so do the females until they need a blood meal to build their eggs.
Q 11Which cosmetic is still called 'rímel' in Spanish, after the perfumer who developed its modern form?
Mascara
Mascara in its modern form came from Eugène Rimmel, who used newly invented petroleum jelly; a similar mix made for a sister named Mabel grew into Maybelline.
Q 12Which wardrobe staple did Audrey Hepburn wear, designed by Givenchy, in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"?
Little black dress
The little black dress was no novelty by then: American Vogue ran a short, simple one in 1926 and predicted "a sort of uniform for all women of taste".
Q 13Which perfume did Marilyn Monroe name in 1952 when Life magazine asked what she wore to bed?
Chanel No. 5
Q 21Which cross-tipped screwdriver is named after an Oregon businessman who sold the idea to carmakers?
Phillips
Phillips bought the design in 1935 from inventor John P. Thompson, who had failed to interest manufacturers; General Motors was using it on Cadillac lines a year later.
Q 22In American football, which two-point score comes from tackling a ball carrier in his own end zone?
Safety
Safety scores are the least common way to put points on the board in American football, and play restarts with a free kick.
Q 23Which cut of beef from the breast of the animal is the star of slow-smoked Texas barbecue?
Brisket
Brisket starts out tough with connective tissue, which is why it is smoked for hours, and the same cut is cured to make corned beef and pastrami.
Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume from couturier Coco Chanel, who picked the fifth of the numbered sample vials her perfumer offered and kept its number as the name.
Q 14Which film has Patrick Swayze's Johnny Castle declare, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner"?
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing drew on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own summers in the Catskills, where she entered dance contests and was nicknamed Baby herself.
Q 15Which haircut named after a 'Friends' character became one of the most requested of the 1990s?
The Rachel
The Rachel was created by stylist Chris McMillan for a practical reason: to repair Jennifer Aniston's damaged hair and grow out her bangs.
Q 16Which sturdy cotton fabric takes its name from the French city of Nîmes?
Denim
Denim is a contraction of the French phrase 'serge de Nîmes', meaning serge from Nîmes.
Q 17Which flower did Anna Jarvis make the emblem of Mother's Day because her own mother loved it?
Carnation
Carnations have marked the day since Jarvis delivered 500 to the first celebration in 1908; she chose white ones for the purity of a mother's love.
Q 18Which Italian dessert has a name meaning 'pick me up'?
Tiramisu
Tiramisu is younger than it tastes: the recipe appears in no cookbook before the 1960s.
Q 19Which of the four Cs used to grade diamonds measures the stone's weight, in units of 200 milligrams?
Carat
Carat comes, through Italian and Arabic, from the Greek for a carob seed, because the seeds were long used to weigh jewelry.
Q 20Which French fashion house created the Birkin bag in 1984 after its chief met actress Jane Birkin?
Hermès
Hermès began in 1837 as a saddlery and harness maker, and built the roomy bag for an actress known for carrying her things in a basket.
Q 24In poker, which unbeatable hand runs from ten up to ace, all in a single suit?
Royal flush
A royal flush is simply the top-ranked version of a straight flush, and nothing outranks it unless wild cards are in play.
Q 25Which action film has New York cop John McClane battling Hans Gruber's gang in Nakatomi Plaza?
Die Hard
Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve and is often named one of the best Christmas films ever made, though whether it counts as one is still disputed.
Q 26Which crime film gave Marlon Brando the line "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"?
The Godfather
The Godfather line was voted the second most memorable in cinema by the American Film Institute, yet a near-identical one appears in a 1933 John Wayne western.
Q 27Which Nintendo hero was called Jumpman in the instructions for the arcade game Donkey Kong?
Mario
Mario was a carpenter in that first game because it is set on a construction site; he became a plumber when Mario Bros. moved the action underground.
Q 28Which sports-car maker's raging-bull emblem was chosen by a founder who was a Taurus himself?
Lamborghini
Lamborghini took the emblem after founder Ferruccio visited the Seville ranch of fighting-bull breeder Eduardo Miura in 1962 and was struck by the animals.
Q 29In a manual-transmission car, what does the pedal on the far left of the footwell operate?
Clutch
Clutch pedals disconnect the engine from the driven wheels for a moment, which is what lets the driver change gear.
Q 30Which NFL prize is named after the coach who led Green Bay to wins in the first two Super Bowls?
Lombardi Trophy
The Lombardi Trophy began as a sketch on a cocktail napkin, drawn by a Tiffany & Co. vice president over lunch with the NFL commissioner in 1966.