Identity and the Politics of Naming

Sor Juana chose her religious name and defended her identity as intellectual, poet, and nun against those who demanded she fit conventional molds. The politics of naming—who names whom, whose names are recorded, what identity others impose—shapes fairness fundamentally. Colonizers rename the colonized; rulers categorize the ruled; patriarchies define women's roles without women's consent. Fair societies grant people the power to define themselves: their names, their roles, their intellectual and creative identity. Sor Juana's insistence on her own naming—as a thinker worthy of respect—challenged colonial and patriarchal systems that sought to contain her. Modern fairness requires recognizing how institutions still control identity through classification, labels, and enforced categories. Justice means allowing people agency in self-definition and honoring the identities they claim, especially when those identities challenge power structures. True fairness respects that identity is not imposed but claimed, negotiated, and lived.