The way institutions encode power through whose knowledge counts, whose questions are valued, and who is permitted to know—examined through Sor Juana's struggle for epistemic recognition.
Sor Juana lived at the intersection of gender, race, illegitimacy, and colonial status—each layer determining what she was allowed to know and teach. The Catholic hierarchy deemed certain knowledge inappropriate for women; colonial structures positioned Indigenous and mixed-race intellectuals as inherently suspect. Yet Sor Juana accumulated vast learning across theology, philosophy, mathematics, and science. In intersectionality, this concept reveals how knowledge itself is gendered and racialized: whose expertise is trusted? Whose questions are considered legitimate? Who gets funding, publication, credibility? When you navigate multiple marginalized identities, institutions often discount your knowledge across all domains. Sor Juana's example shows that claiming intellectual legitimacy while marginalized requires both mastery and strategic visibility. This framework helps you recognize where your knowledge is being undervalued and how to assert epistemic authority.
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