PLAP355 Gender Politics
First Quiz: September 30, 2002
This quiz is multiple choice. For each question, please circle the BEST answer.
1. Coverture, the legal definition of marriage derived from English common law,
a. treated the husband and wife as one person in law, subsuming the rights and
interests of the wife under those of the husband
b. treated the husband and wife as one person in law, combining and balancing the
rights and interests of each spouse
c. was found unconstitutional in the United States in 1978
2. Which author does NOT exemplify a liberal approach to feminism?
a. John Stuart Mill (author of The Subjection of Women)
b. Mary Wollstonecraft (author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women)
c. Adrienne Rich (author of “Husband-Right and Father-Right”)
d. Participants in the Seneca Falls Convention (authors of the Declaration of
Sentiments)
3. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires that employers grant 12 weeks
of unpaid leave for all of the following reasons except:
a. the placement with the employee of a son or daughter for adoption or foster care
b. the birth and care of the newborn child of the employee
c. to allow for bereavement after the loss of an unborn child
d. to allow the employee to care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, or
parent)
4. The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted women the
right to vote in
a. 1865
b. 1890
c. 1920
d. 1929
5. At its founding in the 1960s, NOW was a paradigmatic liberal feminist organization.
a. True
b. False
6. Which of the following is NOT a criticism of liberal feminism?
a. Liberal feminism focuses almost exclusively on the public sphere, ignoring issues
such as the sexual division of labor in families
b. Liberal feminists believe in “the system” and therefore risk being co-opted by the
male establishment
c. Liberal feminism is racist
d. Liberal feminism is classist
e. Liberal feminism is heterosexist
f. None of the above: a-e are all criticisms of liberal feminism
7. Consider the federal law on family leave, the FMLA of 1993. One problem with the
law, mentioned in class and addressed by new legislation in California, is that
a. The federal law fails to recognize that men do less housework than women
b. The federal law provides only for unpaid leave, and many workers can’t afford to
take unpaid leave
c. The federal law treats men and women as equal, when in fact they’re very
different when it comes to childbearing, childrearing, and caregiving
8. Soon after women got the vote in the United States, the long anticipated “women’s
voting bloc” manifested itself in federal, state and local elections
a. True
b. False
9. Some feminist scholars have been particularly interested in studying phenomena
such as intersexuality, transexuality, and homosexuality because such phenomena help
reveal the degree to which biological sex depends on cultural (or linguistic) definitions
and assumptions
a. True
b. False
10. First-wave feminism in the United States focused on
a. a critique of the concept of “gender”
b. getting women the vote and some other civil and economic rights
c. deconstructing the role of “mother” in the family
11. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 guaranteed federal and state employees equal pay for
comparable work
a. True
b. False
12. What did early first-wave feminists learn from their experience in the anti-slavery
movement?
a. How to make philosophical arguments about equality for women
b. How to organize a political movement
c. How deep the conflict between race and gender would go in the U.S., as
abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and Soujourner Truth insisted on putting
black men first
d. Both a & b
e. Both a & c
13. Which of the following is a TRUE statement about the Equal Rights Amendment?
a. A strong bipartisan coalition in Congress supported the ERA, and when it was
sent to the states in 1972, ratification by the required 38 states was expected in
record time
b. If the 27th Amendment hadn’t passed, women would still be struggling for basic
rights, such as equal pay for equal work
c. The struggle over the Equal Rights Amendment shows that, even though proERA activists were far better organized and mobilized in the individual states
than anti-ERA activists, you can’t pass a constitutional amendment when most of
the American public opposes it
14. Which definition of gender best reflects the understanding developed by feminist
scholars?
a. Gender is defined physically, by the reproductive organs and the chemical
hormones that affect them
b. Gender is society’s interpretation of sex-based characteristics and attaches a
culturally constructed value to the differences between the sexes
c. Gender is an invention of the patriarchy which women would be better off
without
15. Which statement is true of the ERA?
a. The Republican Party, responding in part to the interests of business and
professional women, supported the ERA beginning in 1940, before the
Democratic Party did
b. The Democratic Party, responding in part to the interests of organized labor,
supported the ERA beginning in 1944, before the Republican Party did
16. Caprioli and Boyer were found support for the hypothesis that states with higher
levels of gender equality (as assessed by the percentage of women in the national
legislature) are less likely to resort to violence during international crises.
a. True
b. False
17. According to Monique Wittig, a lesbian
a. is a political category that disrupts the idea of the natural woman, exposing its
mythology
b. is the truest, most fully realized form of womanhood
c. is not really a lesbian until she has sex with a woman
18. Which statement about the 1964 Civil Rights Act is NOT true?
a. Title VII of the Act sought to alleviate racial discrimination in employment,
education, and public accommodations, but powerful women’s groups and their
Democratic allies in Congress insisted that they wouldn’t vote for it unless the
Act also addressed sex discrimination
b. Judge Howard Smith, a conservative Democratic Congressman from Virginia,
offered an amendment to Title VII to include sex in the employment
discrimination section, in the hopes of defeating the entire bill
c. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited job discrimination on the basis
of sex
19. Intersectionality is an idea
a. invented by Monique Wittig to reinterpret physical features in the network of
relationships in which they are received
b. invented by Alice Kessler-Harris in her arguments in the Sears case
c. invented by Kimberlé Crenshaw to illuminate problems in anti-discrimination law
20. According to Heidi Hartmann, the division of labor in the household advantages
both men and capitalists because
a. women do more housework and childcare than men
b. women’s (part-time) labor is cheaper than men’s
c. both a & b
d. neither a nor b
21. Which statement is NOT true about the case E.E.O.C. v. Sears, Roebuck?
a. In the case, two feminist historians testified against each other
b. The E.E.O.C won its case against Sears by successfully presenting the testimony
of two women (Alice Kessler-Harris and Rosalind Rosenberg) who said the
company had discriminated against them
c. Sears successfully argued that women preferred less competitive, lower-paying
jobs
d. After losing its appeal in a lower federal court, the E.E.O.C., headed in the 1980s
by future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, declined to ask the Supreme
Court to hear the case
22. Which factor has been cited as a driving force towards the gender integration of the
United States military?
a. National emergenices and the need for more military personnel
b. Changing gender norms in civilian society
c. Improvements in women’s physical capacity
d. All of the above
e. None of the above
23. Women have been allowed to serve as permanent, regular members of the armed
forces of the United States since
a. 1920
b. 1948
a. 1967
d. 1980
24. One of Clinton’s first acts as President in 1993 was to try to change the military’s
official policy of excluding homosexuals
a. True
b. False
25. The “equality vs. difference problem” or the “difference dilemma” in feminism
refers to
a. the insistence by white women on the importance of equality at the expense of the
different perspectives of women of color
b. the torn loyalties that female elected officials feel between representing all of
their constituents equally and trying to make a difference for women in particular
c. the double-bind where women are forced either to deny sexual difference in order
to receive equal treatment, or to acknowledge sexual difference but then face
unequal treatment
26. Francine D’Amico argues that
a. sexuality is part of military life just as it is part of civilian life; the armed forces
should encourage homosexual as well as heterosexual partnership in their ranks
b. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” makes the appearance of heterosexuality paramount;
women are disproportionately affected by it because, simply by joining the armed
forces, they are already “gender outlaws” who call their femininity and
heterosexuality into question
c. Despite well-documented problems in implementation, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
has proven to be a reasonable policy over all, discouraging promiscuity and
scrutiny of military personnel’s sex lives by successfully establishing a zone of
privacy for sex
27. In 1998, under the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” women accounted for
twenty-eight percent of discharges even though women were only fourteen percent of
armed forces personnel that year
a. True
b. False
28. Susan Faludi found The Citadel a productive subject for her feminist analysis
because
a. the bombastic, virile showmanship and violence on display at The Citadel is,
according to Faludi, a poignant example of the late 20 th century’s masculinity
crisis
b. Shannon Faulkner, the woman who prevailed in a long legal battle for admission
to The Citadel, exemplified precisely the sort of “new woman” that Faludi argues
should be a model for feminism
29. In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the right to abortion as an
element of American citizens’ fundamental right to privacy
a. True
b. False
30. Which of the following is NOT a restriction on abortion rights that the Supreme
Court has imposed since 1973?
a. States do not have to utilize their Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for poor
women
b. States do not have to use public funds of any kind to pay for abortions or
abortion counseling
c. States may require that a woman must obtain her husbands’ consent before
obtaining an abortion
31. Which of the following statements is NOT true about captive samaritans, according
to McDonagh?
a. The fetus puts a woman in the position of being a captive samaritan by taking her
body and liberty against her will to serve its own needs
b. Abortion frees women from captive Samaritan status
c. When men make women pregnant, they force them into captive samaritan status
d. None of the above
32. In General Electric v. Gilbert (1976), the Supreme Court
a. required companies to extend health insurance coverage to unmarried domestic
partners
b. established a constitutional right to contraceptive coverage
c. ruled that a health insurance policy distinguishing between pregnant and nonpregnant persons is not sex discrimination against women
33. Which statement is NOT true about McDonagh’s arguments for abortion rights?
a. McDonagh argues that feminists need to do a much better job of establishing
clearly that the fetus is not a person
b. McDonagh argues that both the right to an abortion and the right to have the state
pay for it are better supported by the fundamental liberal right to bodily integrity
than by privacy doctrine
c. McDonagh argues that even a minimalist state must protect individuals from
harm by other individuals
34. Which statement best describes American public opinion on abortion rights?
a. Abortion rights are supported by a majority of American women, but opposed by
a majority of American men
b. African-American citizens are much more likely to support abortion rights than
are white, Hispanic or Asian citizens
c. Americans want abortion to be “legal but limited”
35. Which of the following states has been particularly aggressive in trying to protect
the rights of fetuses by prosecuting women for using substances like crack cocaine
during their pregnancies?
a. Illinois
b. South Carolina
c. California
d. North Carolina
36. In Romer v. Evans (1996), the United States Supreme Court found that
a. Homosexual activity is protected by the fundamental right to privacy enunciated
in Griswald v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade
b. Homosexual couples do not have the right to marry, but they do have the right to
form civil unions
c. Struck down an Amendment to the Colorado State Constitution because it
violated homosexual citizens’ right to the equal protection of the law
37. Which statement is true of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law in
1996?
a. Both houses of Congress passed DOMA by overwhelming margins, and Bill
Clinton signed it into law
b. Bill Clinton, building on his successful defense of gay rights in the military,
vetoed DOMA but Congress overrode his veto
c. DOMA was found to be unconstitutional in Romer v. Evans
38. Citizens’ initiatives probably work better as a tool of opponents rather than
proponents of gay rights
a. True
b. False
39. Attempts to expand civil liberties for gay people raise fewer objections from the
American public and American politicians than do efforts to decriminalize their sexual
behaviors or to legitimize their romantic relationships.
a. True
b. False
40. According to Census data, the traditional patriarchal family model of a male
breadwinner and a stay at home mom characterizes
a.
b.
c.
d.
about 4/5 of US households
about 3/5 of US households
less than ½ of US households
less than ¼ of US households
Use this space to write and sign the Honor Pledge.