Rhetorical Violence: The Rhetorics of Women's Counter Political Violence

Authors

• Kylie Rowland, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Shari Stenberg

Date of this Version

4-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Citation

A THESIS

Presented to the faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Major: English

Under the supervision of Professor Shari Stenberg

Lincoln, Nebraska, April 2026

Comments

Copyright 2026, Kylie Rowland. Used by permission

Abstract

Protest is omnipresent, and yet not much is known about the efficacy and impacts of its different rhetorical strategies—particularly so for marginalized populations, whose available means of protest are already limited by both material realities and assumptions that govern who and what can make waves. This bind is further exacerbated by gendered and racialized civility politics that determine which bodies can be disruptive and which already are considered “violent.” To address this gap, I turn toward the under-researched rhetorical potentials of marginalized people’s—specifically women and queer folks’—use of symbolic protest “violence,” which works to strategically make evident the larger ongoing Violences of the state.

This thesis uses feminist rhetorical criticism alongside theories of rage and violence to analyze two case studies of such symbolic violence: the Red Army Faction’s political violence and the Compton Cafeteria riot. Ultimately, I argue that these instances of what I call “rhetorical counter violence” draw on the unsteady conceptions of man/woman and non/violent to create true disruption. I put forward this concept as a way of differentiating between different types of violences, to remove the stigma from oppressed people’s counter violence and understand its work as a communicative strategy in struggles for change.

Advisor: Shari Stenberg