Deck 10: Beyond the feminine mystique: women's lives

Question 1

What did the Supreme Court rule in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v.Board of Education of Topeka (1954)?

A) Plessy v. Ferguson should be upheld.
B) States could enforce "separate but equal" as they wished.
C) Segregated schools were unconstitutional.
D) Linda Brown had the right to teach white students.

Answer 1

Segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Question 2

How did the women of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA)exemplify 1950s labor activism?

A) They attempted to break down sex-typing of jobs in their industry.
B) The women purged their union of Communist sympathizers.
C) The women limited their actions to petitioning for day care.
D) They challenged racial discrimination in their industry.

Answer 2

They challenged racial discrimination in their industry.

Question 3

What mass protest led to the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)?

A) The Greensboro sit-in
B) The Montgomery bus boycott
C) The Freedom Rides
D) Freedom Summer

Answer 3

The Greensboro sit-in

Question 4

What did the organization Daughters of Bilitis defend?

A) Voting rights
B) Civil rights
C) Lesbian rights
D) Immigrant rights

Question 5

What was significant about women's participation in the Community Service Organization in the Mexican American community?

A) It reflected macho attitudes and ideas by being virtually nonexistent.
B) Women were about half the organization's membership and much of its clerical support.
C) This participation brought Helen Chávez to organizational leadership.
D) Women were limited to child care and coffee making when local groups met.

Question 6

What was historically ironic about women's labor in the 1950s?

A) Household incomes went up dramatically while an increasing percentage of women stayed home.
B) Despite the emphasis on domesticity, increasing numbers of married women and mothers entered the workforce.
C) White women worked in increasing numbers while African American increasingly stayed home with their children.
D) American women secured increasing numbers of prestigious jobs while their college graduation rates fell.

Question 7

During the Eisenhower administration,the Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment because it

A) hoped to attract more women to the party.
B) believed in the principle of equal pay for equal work.
C) saw protective legislation as government intrusion.
D) was trying to gain support from labor.

Question 8

What significant development occurred during Freedom Summer of 1964?

A) The capitulation of long-standing southern resistance to black voting rights
B) The protection of civil rights workers by the U.S. Justice Department
C) The decline of national attention to civil rights issues
D) A high degree of deadly violence against civil rights workers

Question 9

What two major realities did 1950s American culture try to balance?

A) Unprecedented prosperity and a feeling of insecurity
B) Communist subversion and military inferiority
C) Growing religious skepticism and sexual inhibition
D) Shrinking industrial capacity and decreasing family size

Question 10

One legacy of the President's Commission on the Status of Women was the passage of the

A) Equal Rights Amendment.
B) Equal Pay Act of 1963.
C) Civil Rights Act of 1964.
D) Fair Labor Standards Act.

Question 11

What was Betty Friedan referring to when she wrote about "the problem that has no name" in The Feminine Mystique?

A) Women's growing sexual frustration in the wake of the baby boom
B) Sharply declining rates of female college attendance following World War II
C) Female disillusionment with societal restrictions and traditional roles
D) American society's refusal to acknowledge domestic abuse

Question 12

Why were women the backbone of the Montgomery bus boycott?

A) The Montgomery Improvement Association, which led the boycott, was predominately a woman's organization.
B) Women, more than men, depended on public transportation to travel to their jobs.
C) African American men disapproved of Rosa Parks's confrontational approach.
D) Women were put in the forefront because white men were less likely to attack them.

Question 13

What was the main issue that the Food,Tobacco,Agricultural and Allied Workers of America (FTA)wrestled with in the postwar era?

A) Union survival
B) Racial discrimination
C) Equal pay
D) Women's rights

Question 14

How did the Cold War affect ideas about American women's domestic roles?

A) It undermined respect for homemakers.
B) It promoted a revised cult of domesticity.
C) It encouraged women to join the military.
D) It boosted women's sexual freedom.

Question 15

What was one reason for the "baby boom" of the postwar era?

A) An increase in and greater acceptance of illegitimate births
B) War brides' expectations for very large families
C) Rising divorce rates and growing numbers of stepchildren
D) Rising marriage rates and falling marriage ages

Question 16

The 1956 movement known as Operation Coffee Cup was a series of

A) meetings in the homes of housewives who promoted the Equal Rights Amendment.
B) lectures by female union leaders encouraging stay-at-home mothers to join the workforce.
C) small social gatherings in private homes where Republican women could meet local candidates.
D) demonstrations led by African American mothers demanding better schools in black neighborhoods.

Question 17

What recommendation made by the President's Commission on the Status of Women benefited poor black and Chicana women?

A) Endorsing the Equal Rights Amendment
B) Expanding the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act
C) Promoting women's education and job training
D) Improving maternity benefits for working women

Question 18

Ella Baker believed that she could never have a permanent leadership position in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)because she

A) lacked a college education.
B) supported the Equal Rights Amendment.
C) was a woman and not a minister.
D) had questioned Martin Luther King's leadership.

Question 19

What movement proved to be the seedbed for the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s?

A) The ERA movement
B) The antiwar movement
C) The union movement
D) The civil rights movement

Question 20

For what problem did Casey Hayden and Mary King criticize SNCC in their discussion paper?

A) Moving too slowly to end segregation in the South
B) Allowing white students to participate in Freedom Summer
C) Denying women equal participation in decision making
D) Failing to fight violence with violence

Question 21

The United Packinghouse Workers of America fought gender discrimination in the 1950s by

A) partnering with radical groups such as the ACLU.
B) supporting the Equal Rights Amendment.
C) increasing female membership to 50 percent.
D) creating a clearinghouse for grievances within the union.

Question 22

Women Strike for Peace (WSP)came into the public spotlight on November 1,1961 when it

A) picketed the White House against American involvement in the Vietnam War.
B) staged demonstrations in forty communities protesting the nuclear arms race.
C) held a sit-in in Birmingham, Alabama, protesting racial violence in the South.
D) organized peace marches in ten major cities protesting violence against women.

Question 23

What development was a factor that contributed to Americans' postwar prosperity?

A) The GI Bill, which aided families in securing education and starting businesses
B) Weak unions, which allowed businesses to rapidly expand
C) The creation of new markets for American goods in Eastern Europe
D) Racial integration, which increased prosperity for African Americans

Question 24

In his book Baby and Child Care (1946),Dr.Benjamin Spock stated that mothers

A) should enroll in childrearing classes to improve their parenting skills.
B) and fathers were equally responsible for childrearing responsibilities.
C) needed sexual satisfaction in marriage to be effective parents.
D) should focus on childrearing rather than careers outside the home.

Question 25

One impact of the recruitment of white students for Freedom Summer was that it

A) led to tension within the movement between white and black women.
B) created new leadership positions for women.
C) lessened the violence as southern whites refrained from hurting other whites.
D) angered the mainstream media, which refused to cover it.

Question 26

How did the civil rights movement help revive the feminist movement?

A) The Civil Rights Act of 1961 left out the word "gender," which angered women.
B) White and black women bonded because of the sexism within the civil rights movement.
C) It gave middle-class women exposure to role models of female activists.
D) Women were inspired by the militancy of the Black Power movement.

Question 27

What was one criticism of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique?

A) The book focuses exclusively on affluent, white women.
B) Friedan was too enthusiastic in her support of communism.
C) Friedan's status as a housebound writer weakened her scholarly analysis.
D) The book was too dry and abstract for a general audience.

Question 28

Esther Peterson,head of the Women's Bureau,proposed to President Kennedy that he form a Commission on the Status of Women because she wanted to

A) counteract Republican actions against equal pay.
B) test Kennedy's commitment to women's equality.
C) advance the cause of working women.
D) strengthen women's leadership positions in unions.

Question 29

Throughout the 1940s and 1960s,activists and lobbyists for women's issues were divided over whether

A) married women should enter the workforce.
B) sex education should be taught in the public schools.
C) the Commission on the Status of Women should support the ERA.
D) the ERA helped or damaged women's position in the workplace.

Question 30

Why did the U.S.Department of Labor encourage the employment of women in the 1950s?

A) Government leaders believed that women's small hands made them ideal for operating computers.
B) Because of casualties in World War II, there were not enough men to fill the growing number of industrial jobs.
C) It believed the nation needed "womanpower" to maintain prosperity and compete with the Soviet Union.
D) It was concerned that more and more American families were slipping below the poverty line.

Question 31

One way that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)was significant in the civil rights movement was that it

A) organized the highly successful Montgomery bus boycott.
B) formulated the legal strategy that challenged segregation in schools.
C) gave women the greatest opportunity to participate in and influence the movement.
D) was the foremost group for implementing Dr. Martin Luther King's ideas.

Question 32

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)challenged segregation on interstate bus travel by organizing

A) a march on Washington, D.C.
B) bus rides consisting of black and white activists.
C) a bus boycott by all black travelers.
D) voter registration drives in the South.

Question 33

One fundamental contradiction of the mission of the President's Commission on the Status of Women was between

A) advancing women's careers and preserving their traditional roles.
B) forwarding women's rights without helping minority women.
C) promoting women's rights and maintaining their marginal status.
D) promoting women's educational and career goals.

Question 34

Women served as "bridge leaders" in the civil rights movement by

A) being spokeswomen to white organizations for their own local civil rights groups.
B) making connections between government agencies and civil rights groups.
C) working temporarily in leadership when men were taking part in demonstrations.
D) organizing communities to take particular actions in support of civil rights.

Question 35

What issue did women's groups,such as the YWCA,focus on in the 1950s?

A) Passage of an Equal Rights Amendment
B) Women's career opportunities
C) The civil rights movement
D) The rise in global poverty

Question 36

How did the Red Scare after World War II spill over into private life?

A) Veterans received government-subsidized college tuition only if they signed loyalty oaths.
B) The FBI was authorized to wiretap home telephones without court authorization to search for radicals.
C) The government funded cartoon programs to show the United States as stronger and more moral than the Soviet Union.
D) The hunt for subversives targeted people with nonconformist sexual lives, particularly suspected homosexuals.

Question 37

Why was challenging the gendered structure of the workplace a problem for women's unions?

A) Women activists had long supported protective labor legislation.
B) Most working women embraced the 1950s ideology that women were unfit for strenuous labor.
C) Male resistance toward female skilled workers threatened the existence of female unions.
D) White women resisted any legislation that would treat African American women as equals.

Question 38

What was behind Rosa Parks's decision to challenge segregation on a Montgomery,Alabama,bus?

A) The encouragement of her husband, an important civil rights worker
B) Weeks of planning by the local NAACP chapter to stage the confrontation
C) Parks's background as a civil rights activist for fifteen years
D) The encouragement of President Eisenhower, who despised segregation

Question 39

What aspect of society did Alfred Kinsey's report expose?

A) Racial discrimination in northern factories
B) Changes in sexual behavior among women and men
C) Communists serving high positions within the government
D) The rise of juvenile delinquency among children of working mothers

Question 40

How did World War II set the stage for radical racial change?

A) In lobbying for the Fair Employment Practices Commission, African American leaders created the first step toward recognition of civil rights.
B) Through their service in the armed forces during the war, African American men proved they were equal to white men.
C) Angered at the racial violence of Nazi Germany, more Americans demanded racial equality in the United States.
D) African Americans' participation in union activities during the war taught them new techniques to fight discrimination.