The distinct gender-specific routes into the carceral system shaped by sexual violence, poverty, and restrictions on women's autonomy and intellectual development.
Sor Juana's life illustrates how women's lack of autonomy—denied education, economic independence, and freedom to choose their path—creates precarity that can lead to survival criminalization. Women's incarceration differs fundamentally from men's, shaped by histories of abuse, poverty, and the criminalization of survival strategies like sex work and drug possession. Many incarcerated women are survivors of violence, economically exploited, or mothers punished for inadequate resources—circumstances Sor Juana escaped through exceptional intellectual opportunity. This concept examines how mass incarceration reflects and reinforces gendered control: constraining women's options until criminalization appears inevitable. Sor Juana's resistance through intellectual life reveals an alternative pathway—one most women lack access to. Understanding gendered incarceration requires addressing root causes: economic justice, freedom from violence, educational access, and recognition of women's intellectual and moral agency as fundamental to preventing criminalization.
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