Q 01/05

Which country, in 1893, became the first self-governing nation to give women the vote in national elections?

A) Australia

B) New Zealand

C) Finland

D) United Kingdom

Answer · why

B) New Zealand

New Zealand's governor signed the Electoral Act in September 1893 after suffragists led by Kate Sheppard presented a petition of nearly 32,000 signatu...

Q 02/05

Which scientist was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

A) Lise Meitner

B) Rosalind Franklin

C) Ada Lovelace

D) Marie Curie

Answer · why

D) Marie Curie

Marie Curie was added to the 1903 Physics prize only after a Swedish mathematician warned Pierre that the nomination named just him and Henri Becquere...

Q 03/05

Who, in 1960, became the first woman in the world to be elected head of government of a modern nation?

A) Margaret Thatcher

B) Indira Gandhi

C) Sirimavo Bandaranaike

D) Gro Harlem Brundtland

Answer · why

C) Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Sirimavo Bandaranaike entered politics after her husband, Ceylon's prime minister, was assassinated in 1959; she took over his party and led it to vic...

Q 04/05

Which author wrote the influential feminist work 'A Room of One's Own'?

A) Virginia Woolf

B) Emily Brontë

C) Mary Shelley

D) Jane Austen

Answer · why

A) Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf built the 1929 essay from two lectures she gave at Cambridge women's colleges; in it she imagines a gifted sister of Shakespeare who is...

Q 05/05

In which modern Olympic Games did women first officially compete?

A) 1896 Athens

B) 1900 Paris

C) 1908 London

D) 1912 Stockholm

Answer · why

B) 1900 Paris

1900 Paris let in 22 women even though Games founder Pierre de Coubertin opposed their taking part; Britain's Charlotte Cooper won the tennis singles,...