Triece,+Mary.++Rhetoric+and+Social+Change..+Womens+Struggles+for+Economic+and+Political+Equality

"Activists in these organizations ... employed a rhetoric of //collectivity// which emphasized the centrality of labor in shaping human experience and viewed rhetorical and physical solidarity as fundamental in achieving the ultimate goal of economic transformation. This rhetorical framework was employed in speeches and pamphlets, and it underpinned extra-discursive actions such as strikes and walk-outs that constituted a class-based antagonism rooted in real relations of exploitation" 238-239).

"A historical materialist approach encourages critics to explore previously underdeveloped areas of rhetorical studies; namely, the ways that institutions and structures external to language motivate, shape, and delimit human activity and strategies for social change. For social movement studeies more specifically, this framework calls attention to 'extra-discursive' protest tactics and the influence of class position on one's strategies for social change" (240).

"As a contribution to social movement studies, this article encourages scholars to attend to the influences of extra-verbal structures that delimit social struggle and that often require extra-verbal actions to transform. Refocusing studies of the resistant practices of subordinate groups to include these collective material actions points to important differences between material and symbolic actions and underscores the argument that discursive practices alone (whether they be speeches or resistant readings) are not always enough to challenge work arrangements from which certain groups benefit materially" (256).