The First Feminist of the New World: Sor Juana
As famous Mexican feminists go, Frida Kahlo has certainly become a name around the world, even in India. But on this International Women’s Day, you should know about the story of another remarkable Mexican woman, who lived during the Colonial era: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Her real name was Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez, and she was born around 1651. Nicknamed “The Mexican Phoenix” and “The Tenth Muse”, she advocated for the feminist cause long before it had a name.
A self-taught wonder
Juana was the third of six illegitimate children of a Spanish Captain, and was raised in a family of modest means. Her mother was illiterate, but she managed to hire a tutor for her sons and daughters. Following her siblings to lessons, Juana was able to read by age 3.
She ventured to learn all she could from her grandfather’s library. She devoured the books in it, and even taught herself Nahuatl, the indigenous language from the central region of Mexico, which she would later weave into her poetry.
Growing up, she would beg her mother to cut her hair short and be allowed to disguise herself as a man so that she could go to university.
Extravagant times at court
Later in her life, Juana would move from her hometown in the shadow of the Popocatépetl volcano, to Mexico City and live with her aunt there.
As a teenager, she joined the court of the Marquis de Mancera to be a lady-in-waiting for his wife. “The court will be a perfect place for you to find a husband”, her aunt and uncle would say.
Dazzling for her unquenchable thirst for knowledge, as well as her blooming beauty, Juana became a bit of an intellectual celebrity and began to write poetry. It is also said that the vice-regent assembled a panel of jurists, philosophers, and scholars to test her knowledge of literature, history and mythology, which she aced “like a royal galleon defending itself against a few rowing boats.”
From the court to the nunnery
Juana joined the Catholic Convent of San Jerónimo and became a nun. Her reasons were manifold, including her reluctance to get married, but mostly she joined this nunnery to freely pursue her love of learning. In her own words, the religious order was “the most decent thing” she could do that might allow her to dedicate herself to an intellectual life.
In the face of this primary concern (surely it is the most important one) all the stubborn little impertinences of my nature gave way and bowed: that is, wanting to live alone; wanting not to have any obligatory duties that would hinder my freedom to study; being free from community noises that would interrupt the peace and quiet of my books.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, in “Reply to Sor Filotea”
She would then take the name “Sor Juana”, which means Sister Juana. She amassed an impressive library that boasted over 4,000 volumes. She was a prolific writer: besides poetry, she authored mathematical treatises, social manifestos, musical compositions, and stage plays. Her passionate love poems to María Luisa, the wife of the new viceroy, are also widely known.
“Me, the worst of them all”
After losing some of her main benefactors, misfortune would befall Sister Juana. A high-ranking bishop published one of her private letters in which -at his behest- she criticized the sermon of a priest, using the pen name “Sor Filotea”.
Showcasing her distinctive braveness, Juana responded to the accusations with one of her most famous writings. In her “Reply to Sor Filotea”, she championed the intellectual rights of women, advocated for women to have access to education, and defended her own right to disagreement.
God graced me with of a gift of an immense love for the truth — is that since the first light of reason dawned on me my inclination toward letters was so intense and powerful that neither reprimands by others, of which I have had many, nor self-reflection, of which I have done not a little, have been sufficient for me to stop pursuing this natural impulse that God put in me.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, in “Reply to Sor Filotea”
After this, Juana was censored and was stripped of her freedoms. Not only did she lose her library, but she was forbidden to publish, and had to dispose of all her scientific equipment.
Moreover, she signed a famous apology letter to the Church by the name of “Me, the worst of them all”.
She died in 1695, in a plague that ravaged Mexico City.
Nobel Prize-winning author, Octavio Paz, who was an Ambassador to India and a known lover of Indian culture, reintroduced her texts and verses to a whole new generation in his 1988 book “Sor Juana: Or, The Traps of Faith”.
Sor Juana is now considered a national icon in Mexico. Her face is featured in the 200 pesos bill and her convent is now an important center of higher education.
Last year, Netflix produced “Juana Inés”, an original series based on her life.
We remember her today for her intense love of learning, an infatuation that dominated her life.
Sor Juana was a fearless defender of the cause of education for women, she persistently rejected the life that was assigned for her as a woman of the 17th Century, and she relentlessly pursued an education, in a time in which women were not entitled to one.
One of her most famous verses reflect how she was a woman ahead of her time:
“O foolish men who accuse
women with so little cause,
not seeing you are the reason
for the very thing you blame:
for if with unequaled longing
you solicit their disdain,
why wish them to behave well
when you urge them on to evil?” (Sor Juana 1–8)
“You think highly of no woman,
no matter how modest: if she
rejects you she is ungrateful,
and if she accepts, unchaste.” (Sor Juana 29–32)
