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About Rural Womyn Zone, from

The Rural Womyn Zone (RWZ) is a technological network that seeks to critically educate rural women. The RWZ describes itself as a “grass-roots international network of rural women which started using the Internet in 1997 to provide information, outreach, support and a networking base for rural women and their nonprofit organizations and grass roots activities." The RWZ also seeks to “publish news and information for rural women and by rural women” and help rural women utilize technology, make connections with other rural women, and access news and other resources. Through providing access to resources that would take rural women hours to amass on their own, the RWZ demonstrates one way technology can endorse and support literacy and education can be a critical, public pedagogy of place. Despite the expense and unavailability of Internet technology, particularly high-speed access, for some rural citizens, the site explains its intention as an on-line space to gather:

One challenge faced by scholars involves how to avoid colonizing the voices of rural women, and how instead to seriously face and understand the different contexts of women’s lives. . . .Feminist theorists. . .remain caught in a bind. We call for marginalized groups of women to enable subjects to speak for themselves, but we realize that the academic and literary worlds are closed or alien to many of these women. (Carolyn Sachs)

The RWZ stands out from other examples in that it begins from the assumption that dominant ideologies in mainstream rural culture and the United States more broadly are to be questioned and examined: it begins from a position of decolonization . . .

. .the RWZ remains inclusive to those who may not hold the same ideologies: “You do not have to identify with the women’s movement or with feminism in order to belong to this group. But we assume the validity of the women’s movement and explore the gap between feminism and rural women’s experience.”

Its decolonization goals are also clear on the home page in its emphasis on political action, featuring news articles . . .such as. . . .“It’s a Long, Long Way to Towanda, Kansas: The Price of Neglecting Rural America.”