Feminist Flash Mobs Seek to Protest, Encourage Discussion

By Ben Wasserstein
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Originally posted in The Collegian

The beat of the drums and the chants of “timely warning” bellowed across campus during the feminist flash mob interventions at the University of Richmond on March 5. 

The event was planned by Mariela Méndez, professor of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance Patricia Herrera. 

The demonstration was modeled after a Nov. 25 protest in Chile, Méndez said. The protests were originally about neoliberal economic measures, but quickly shifted to a feminist movement, she said. 

The flash mob performs at the Stern Quadrangle. Photo by Ben Wasserstein of The Collegian

Using the protest as a template, students performed a version of the protest chant localized to the UR community.

"Timely Warning/ Patriarchy is our judge/ That imprisons us at birth/ And our punishment/ Is the violence you DON’T see./Racism is our judge/That affects us all at birth/And the punishment/Is the violence you CAN see," is part of the chant that students from seven different classes wrote.

Herrera and Méndez wanted to show their students how to use their bodies as vehicles of change, they said during the flash mob interventions.

Seven classes participated in total, including Herrera and Méndez’s course, “Gender, Race, and Performance Across the Americas.”

“That's part of the work that we're doing with our class,” Herrera said, “Really exposing our students to the many ways that the body is a vehicle for social change and how they can use and incorporate the body in their own thinking or being just global citizens of the world.”