Intellectual Authority and Gender Performance

Sor Juana's bold assertion of her right to intellectual pursuit directly confronted the assumption that women should be confined to domestic or religious spheres. In examining cisgender identity, this concept reveals how gender performance—the behaviors and expressions society prescribes—becomes naturalized and appears inevitable rather than constructed. Sor Juana demonstrated that intellectual capacity transcends gender boundaries, exposing cisgender identity as a social arrangement rather than a fixed essence. When women claim authority in knowledge production, they disrupt the tacit agreement that cisgender identity requires intellectual deference. This framework helps us see how cisgender women internalize limits on intellectual ambition, while cisgender men inherit unquestioned access to knowledge domains. By examining Sor Juana's historical struggle, we recognize contemporary patterns where gender still shapes who is believed, published, and remembered as a thinker.