Our Project
Flour City Feminist Actions is a digital history exhibition created by Bridget Fleming and Elizabeth Sapere, two Ph.D. students at the University of Rochester.
Our exhibition unearths a neglected but rich history of a feminist organization known as “Rochester Women Against Violence Against Women” (R-WAVAW) that was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Members of R-WAVAW took to the streets, bookstores, storefronts, universities, movie theaters, and court rooms to protest how women were wrongfully represented in advertising and media.
Our goal is for this website to serve as an online exhibition, in order that this history might be brought to a new generation of feminists and activists in Rochester and beyond.
Our Team
Bridget Fleming is a Ph.D. candidate in the Visual & Cultural Studies program at the University of Rochester. Her research interests include contemporary art, feminism, and experimental film. Her dissertation explores the role of confessional speech in feminist documentary film and video. Recent curatorial projects include the group exhibitions Sex/Labor (November-December 2024) and Trans Futurity (August-September 2025) in the Hartnett Gallery at the University of Rochester.
Elizabeth Sapere is a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of Rochester. Her research focuses on feminism and surrogacy in the 1980s. Elizabeth teaches courses on feminist theory, transgender studies, and culture wars in the late twentieth century.
