A Woman of Substance Trivia Quiz

Answer: Venus of Willendorf

The voluptuous but diminutive Venus of Willendorf, a limestone statuette a mere 4˝ inches (11 cm) high, dates from the Old Stone Age (Upper Paleolithic Period), perhaps around 25,000 BCE, and was discovered in Austria in 1908. By and large anthropologists have conjectured that this figurine and others like it found throughout Europe are either fertility fetishes or mother goddesses, the assumption being that these were considered attractive, desirable figures. Dissenting anthropologists Catherine McCoid and LeRoy McDermott, however, have argued that the underlying assumption has been that these were carved by men looking at women, and they have suggested rather these were carved by women looking at themselves.

The body parts, particularly the shape of the breasts and the belly, are how they might appear as one looks down on oneself (lacking a mirror otherwise by which to see).

The mysterious Venus of Willendorf resides in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Answer: Rubens

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1643) was the premier artist of the Flemish Baroque school, and a student of anatomy and medicine. Although he painted religious and mythological subjects as well as landscapes, he is remembered most for his sensual paintings of Rubenesque or Rubensian women, including 'Amor and Venus' (1614), 'Venus at the Mirror (1615), and The Three Graces (1635). Rubens associated physical strength and presence with moral strength.

By the time we are well into the Industrial Age, artistic attitudes had changed. The ladies painted by William-Adolphe Bougerau (1825-1900), for example, are slim cupids, indeed. The Rubensian women are not pear-shaped but apple-shaped, with a waist-to-hip ratio which by the 21st century became associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Answer: Anne

Queen Anne reigned for just twelve years, but during that time England arose as a world power from the endless wars in Europe, the question of whether England would remain Protestant was settled, and England (including Wales) and Scotland united to form Great Britain. (In 1801, this became the United Kingdom; Great Britain now properly refers to the island which comprises England, Scotland, and Wales).

Queen Anne herself was ill and overweight, and grieving over twelve miscarriages and three children who did not survive her. It seems that historians, academic and especially popular, remain fixated on Anne's body, although some of this comes from 18th-century Whig writers and politicians like Roger Coke and John Clerk who described her as monstrously fat, red-faced, and a compulsive eater and addict to hot cocoa. In general, however, she has been described in the most unflattering terms, either as a weak over-eater, or a once-attractive woman whose multiple pregnancies ruined her figure. Usually, those who emphasize her fatness imply incompetence, whereas those who defend her intelligence and political shrewdness tend to minimize her appearance, as though a queen could not be both fat and sharp. In the black comedy "The Favourite" (2018), she was depicted as both lustful and gluttonous, though not quite so fat. When Queen Anne was crowned, she could not walk to Westminster Abbey but had to be carried by sedan chair. When she died, she was placed in a coffin described by a contemporary as "almost square", pulled by fourteen horses, and then carried by fourteen men.

Answer: Victoria

As a child, Victoria was restricted in what she could eat, sometimes only bread and milk, but she vowed that when she became queen, she would eat whatever she liked, and mutton every day. And so it came to pass! Royal breakfasts would include porridge, fish, eggs on toast, "fancy breads", and smoked haddock, even leftover partridge or quail. She ascended the throne in 1837, and by the 1840s, at least one physician had observed that her shape had become "more like a barrel than anything else". Weighing merely 7 stone (98 lbs or 44 kg) on her wedding day, she had acquired a BMI of 32 by the 1880s and a waist of 50" (127 cm) by end of the century. All this on a 5'1" (155 cm) frame. When advised to reduce, she simply ate patented dietetic foods on top of everything else (not unlike dieters of the modern era). A popular song mocking both the queen and her prince consort Albert went, "He comes to take 'for better or for worse' / England's fat queen and England's fatter purse". A generally voracious person, her honeymoon with Albert was, shall we say, not describable in a family web site!

Despite the queen's obesity, as the nineteenth century progressed, concern with overeating and with becoming too curvy grew. Victorians connected food with sex, and girls and women were encouraged to eat abstemiously as a sign of moral and physical fitness. Queen Victoria herself restricted her daughters' diets.

"Edacious", by the way, means "given to eating".

Answer: Lillian Russell

Lillian Russell was known in song as the "airy, fairy Lillian, the American Beauty", and the most popular rose in America was named after her. She was an ardent supporter of the enfranchisement of women, as her mother was. Around 1912 she began writing a newspaper column and giving lectures. And she supported the Actors' Equity strike of 1919.

Lillian Russell's ample figure was made hourglass-shaped in a corset, but like Queen Victoria, she had an enormous appetite that often shocked those who met her, in defiance of conventions of female abstemiousness. One man who served Russell and Diamond Jim Brady at Delmonico's in New York observed that she ate more than her companion. Although dance-hall women were admired for being voluptuous in the 1880s, the expectations for upper-class women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries grew more slender as the 1900s became the 1910s and '20s. And even when plump women were admired, the 18-inch waist (created by a stiff corset) was idealized, even when it restricted breathing and caused fainting.

Answer: Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates won Best Actress for playing a deranged fan who rescues but then imprisons and tortures her favorite author for weeks in 'Misery' (1991). When Hattie McDaniel won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Mammy in 'Gone wth the Wind' (1939), she was the first African American to win any Oscar. Octavia Spencer won Best Actress for her role in 'The Help' (2011), and Mo'Nique played a despicably abusive mother for her Best Supporting Actress award in 'Precious' (2009). What these roles have in common is that they are either villains (Bates and Mo'Nique) or servants (McDaniel and Spencer), which many authors have observed is a reflection of the narrow space carved out for wide-bodied women in Hollywood, despite decades of activism in size acceptance since the 1960s.

Answer: Ms. Magazine

In the 1960s, the model Twiggy entered Western popular culture, and a boyish beauty standard for women developed: almost no bust, no waist, no hips, no curves. Gloria Steinem, the founder of Ms. Magazine and a consumer of Metrecal, a liquid-protein shake, and Jane Fonda, known for her half-a-banana breakfast even before her workout book, and mainstream/liberal feminism on the whole seemed willing to let Madison Avenue and Hollywood dictate beauty standards for women. One source has speculated that they believed that removing outward signs of womanhood would make them more accepted in a male-dominated society. (I could not find, however, any quote from Steinem or Fonda explicitly stating this.)

Other liberal feminists however, like Betty Friedan in "The Feminine Mystique" (1963), lamented women who "ate a chalk called Metrecal, instead of food, to shrink to the size of thin young models". And Ms. Magazine would eventually change its tune and in 1997 would name Nomy Lamm as Woman of the Year for "inspiring a new generation of feminists to fight back against fat oppression."

Meanwhile, in 1969, because of discrimination against his wife, William Fabrey founded the National Association to Aid Fat Americans, later renamed the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), in hopes of promoting the rights of fat people, especially fat women. When NAAFA balked at stronger activism, and the National Organization for Women (NOW) wouldn't give any support, Sara Aldebaran Fishman and Judy Freespirit founded the Fat Underground in 1972. Freespirit and Vivian Mayer released the "Fat Liberation Manifesto" a year later, which connected fat-hatred with sexism. Fishman then moved to Connecticut and founded the Fat Liberation Front, whose papers are archived at the University of Connecticut. FU and FLF collaborated on a seminal fat-acceptance book, "Shadows on a Tightrope" (1983).

Answer: BBW

BBW stands for Big, Beautiful Woman, and it was a term applied to the person and to the magazine, which also began its own merchandising line, conducted model searches, provided a friendship service, and held annual fashion shows. The magazine industry being a brutal one, 'BBW' ceased publication in the late 1990s, but in the 2000s it re-emerged as an online-only publication.

The acronym is actually trademarked, although it is a term that became frequently used on the Internet and in social media, in both positive and disparaging ways.

The focus of 'BBW' changed from being primarily a fashion magazine to include articles about personal growth and even some addressing obesity research.

Answer: Carnie Wilson

Carnie Wilson (b. 1968) may be the poster child for bariatric surgery and what can go wrong. During Wilson Philips' heyday in the 1990s, Carnie Phillips reached a peak of about 300 pounds. She received a gastric bypass in 1999, and lost 150 pounds (almost 11 stone), reducing from an American size 28 to a size 6. Wilson gained a lot of it back, however, by 2010, and began a reality TV series called "Carnie Wilson: Unstapled", which focused on her attempts to re-lose the weight. She got lap-belt surgery in 2012, but apparently did not duplicate her previous weight loss.

In 1999, Wilson appeared on Howard Stern's TV show, where he tricked her into stepping on a scale and revealing her weight. Stern made other fat-shaming remarks, and even questioned her fiancé, suggesting he was marrying her for her money. Most of her life, in fact, Wilson was ridiculed for her weight. Despite the lack of lasting success in her bariatric surgical undertakings, Wilson's charity on the American TV show 'The New Celebrity Apprentice' (2016-17) was The Weight-Loss Surgery Foundation of America, which raises funds for weight-loss surgery and for reconstructive surgery following weight loss.

Carnie Wilson, Wendy Wilson, and Chynna Phillips comprised Wilson Phillips. Carnie and Wendy were the daughters of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, and Chynna Philips was the daughter of Michelle and John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.

Answer: Barbie

The 2016 "Curvy Barbie", if she were enlarged to life-size, would have a 24" (63cm) waist and 36" (91.2cm) hips. To compare, if the original Barbie were life-sized, she have a waist between 18 and 21 inches (45.7-54cm), and hips of 30" (78cm). Even so, the proportions of the Curvy Barbie are still unrealistic for many women, and they do not represent a statistical average (mean or median) for American women in 2016. Studies, such as one from University of Sussex that appear in "Developmental Psychology" in 2006, show that "exposure to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling".

Lammily was created by graphic artist Nickolay Lamm in 2017 as an alternative to Barbie. He claimed it has the proportions of an "average" 19-year-old woman, although critics like Nikki Gloudeman of HuffPost have pointed out Lammily is still quite "suspiciously thin" and would "fit right into the pages of 'Cosmo', or on a Fashion Week catwalk".