Strategic Compliance and Coded Resistance

Sor Juana navigated Spanish colonial religious authority by framing her intellectual pursuits and feminist arguments within acceptable theological and poetic forms. This strategy of coded resistance—appearing to comply while actually challenging—is a survival tactic intersectional practitioners must understand. Marginalized people often cannot afford direct confrontation and must develop sophisticated ways to preserve agency while navigating hostile systems. In modern contexts, this might mean how women frame ambitious career goals, how queer people reference identity in conservative spaces, or how people of color contextualize their expertise to be heard. However, coded resistance carries costs: emotional labor, inauthenticity, and the burden of translation. Sor Juana's example illuminates both the necessity and the tragedy of this practice. Intersectional justice work includes recognizing when people employ these strategies and creating spaces where such coding becomes unnecessary, where authentic voice is genuinely safe.