Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz: Pioneer in Mexican feminism
Juana Ines Ramirez was born out of wedlock to a Spanish captain and the daughter of a wealthy landowner in a village outside of Mexico City in 1651. She spent her formative years on the estate of her maternal grandfather, raised by her mother. By all accounts she was a child prodigy. She spent hours in her grandfather’s well-appointed library and had mastered Greek, Latin and Nahuatl, as well as Aristotle’s “Logic,” in her pre-teen years.
At the age of 16 she disguised herself as a man and was admitted to the university in Mexico City. Yet her grandfather got her a position as a lady-in-waiting to the Spanish viceroy’s wife. There, she prospered, and had access to a fine library that attracted the capital’s most erudite clerics, scientists and scholars. A panel of experts quizzed her on her knowledge in various fields when she was 17 and, to the shock of those present, she showed a depth of learning beyond her years.
Despite receiving several marriage proposals, she became a nun. It was the only practical way to avoid marriage and devote her life to scholarship. At the Monastery of San Jeronimo, she found a welcoming and liberal mother superior who gave her a private apartment with kitchen, bath and library. There she became famous for her writings, which were widely circulated. Her apartment became a literary salon, and her library (with the support of generous and wealthy friends) was the largest in Mexico. Her chief patroness was the Countess de Paredes, also known as Maria Luisa, with whom she had an intimate and lifelong friendship. Although some writers have hinted they had an affair, the consensus seems to be that Sor Juana took her vows seriously. According to the leading scholar in the field, Sergio Tellez-Pon, at Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, their relationship “was intense but chaste.”
Sor Juana’s poetry affirmed solidarity with women, spoke of the limitations on women in society and criticized macho culture and the disparagement of female intellect. In one poem, “You Foolish Men,” she accused them of wrongly faulting womankind and chastised their “arrogance.” She not only demonstrated women’s strength but their balance in the face of patriarchal contempt.
When she wrote a letter criticizing the clergy, the conservative bishop of Mexico tried to silence her. She wrote a rebuttal called “La Respuesta,” which was widely circulated. There she used both local and biblical evidence to refute the bishop’s critique. His reaction was swift and brutal. She was threatened with the Inquisition and forced to stop writing and abandon her library to avoid more serious consequences. She died at the age of 46, a humble nun, tending to the sick during an epidemic in Mexico City.
Her work was ignored for centuries until Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz reintroduced her to the world. He considered her the most important poet in the Americas until Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson appeared in the 19th century. Most scholars agree her work is refreshingly modern in tone, and she is clearly the source of the Women as Priests Movement and of Latina Feminist Theology, due to her strong position on the patriarchal limitations on women in the church. She is also a clear example of women’s strength in adversity and shows how one woman can impact unborn generations.