Intersectional Grounds for Disobedience

Sor Juana's position as a woman, likely of mixed racial heritage, of lower socioeconomic status, and under ecclesiastical authority created compounded injustices that single-axis analysis cannot capture. Her disobedience addressed not one law but interconnected systems of exclusion. This concept advances civil disobedience theory by insisting that movements must recognize how oppressions layer and amplify. Sor Juana's framework demonstrates that the most marginalized often have the strongest moral case for disobedience, since they bear multiple burdens of unjust systems. For contemporary movements, this perspective validates coalition-building across communities facing intersecting harms and challenges single-issue approaches to justice. Her tradition insists that disobedience addressing one axis of oppression while ignoring others remains incomplete. This concept grounds civil disobedience in the embodied experiences of those most harmed, centering their knowledge and claims rather than abstract principle.