Intersectional Humility and Intellectual Limits

Despite her extraordinary brilliance, Sor Juana positioned herself humbly before those with different experience and knowledge—Indigenous peoples, the enslaved, other women. She refused the false universalism of dominant voices that claim to speak for all. Intersectional humility requires recognizing that no single perspective—even a marginalized one—captures all truth. In intersectionality practice, this means that a person with multiple marginalized identities in some domains may carry privilege in others; acknowledging this prevents the reproduction of dominance within social justice work. Intellectual humility becomes a practice of asking: Where does my knowledge come from? What am I not positioned to know? Whose expertise should I defer to here? This stance prevents marginalized thinkers from claiming authority outside their lived experience while simultaneously protecting the legitimacy of knowledge produced within their own intersections. It builds accountability and solidarity rather than hierarchy.