Consumption as Resistance to Erasure

Sor Juana lived with constant threat of erasure: her work suppressed by the church, her intellectual authority challenged for her gender and race, her contributions forgotten or attributed to others. Her resistance was partly visibility—insisting on being seen and recognized. Ethical consumption can function similarly: where we spend money determines what survives and flourishes. Choosing to buy from women artists, from indigenous craftspeople, from communities pushed to economic margins, from small producers threatened by corporate consolidation—these choices are not charity but justice. They are acts of refusal to accept the erasure that systems engineer. When we prioritize buying from producers whose voices and labor might otherwise be made invisible, we participate in their visibility and survival. This reframes ethical consumption from individual moral superiority to solidarity and collective recognition. Following Sor Juana's example, we resist the systems designed to erase certain people's contributions and worth by insisting on seeing them, valuing them, and supporting their continued presence in the world through conscious economic choice.