Intersectional Justice in Purchase Decisions

Sor Juana inhabited multiple marginalized identities—as a woman, Indigenous person, and intellectual in a patriarchal colonial system—giving her unique insight into how injustice compounds across categories. This intersectional awareness applies powerfully to ethical consumption. A single purchase affects not one but multiple dimensions of justice: gender equity in labor, Indigenous land rights, racial wage gaps, disability inclusion in work, environmental racism. Fast fashion exemplifies this complexity—cheap garments often rely on women workers in the Global South, environmental degradation in communities of color, and exploitation of disabled workers. Ethical consumption informed by intersectional justice requires asking: Whose rights are violated in this supply chain? How do these harms cluster? Whose liberation is served by my choice? This framework prevents the narrow virtue-signaling that allows wealthy consumers to feel ethical while ignoring systemic patterns Sor Juana would have immediately recognized.