What does it mean to consume ethically when systems themselves are built unjustly?

This is the question Sor Juana would have asked directly: Can individual choices fix structural inequity? The honest answer is no, not alone. But that doesn't make your choices meaningless—it makes them contextual. Ethical consumption, at its deepest level, isn't about personal purity. It's about recognizing that every purchase is a small vote for how you want systems to work, while simultaneously acknowledging that real justice requires systemic change you can't shop your way into. You can buy fair-trade coffee and still live in an economy built on extraction. Both things are true. What matters is holding them both at once without using one as an excuse to ignore the other. Start by consuming differently *and* acting politically—support policies and organizations working on systemic reform. Know your own supply chains deeply. Ask uncomfortable questions of companies and yourself. Support worker organizing and community-led solutions, not just corporate responsibility programs. Ethical consumption becomes honest when you stop treating it as absolution and start treating it as part of a larger commitment to justice. Your individual choices matter because they're part of your integrity, not because they alone will transform systems. That requires collective action, which is far more powerful than any purchase.