Epistemic Justice and Knowledge Rights

Sor Juana faced systematic epistemic injustice: her ideas were dismissed not on merit but because she was female, because she defied gender norms, because ecclesiastical authorities wanted to silence her. Epistemic justice—the fair treatment of people as knowers—is essential to human rights frameworks because it determines whose voices shape law, policy, and social understanding. When certain groups are structurally prevented from being heard or believed, they are denied a core human capacity and excluded from power. Sor Juana's insistence on participating in intellectual debates, her published defenses of women's intellectual capabilities, and her refusal of silence constitute acts of epistemic resistance. Human rights frameworks must include mechanisms ensuring that marginalized groups' knowledge, experience, and reasoning receive genuine consideration. This is not charity; it is recognition that justice requires listening to those most affected by injustice and valuing diverse forms of knowing as essential to comprehensive understanding.