Intersectional Oppression

Sor Juana faced barriers not as a woman alone, or colonial subject alone, or poor person alone, but as all simultaneously. A wealthy man could study; a poor man had fewer options; a wealthy woman was still forbidden education; a poor indigenous woman faced near-total exclusion. Her insights emerged from navigating these intersecting barriers—she understood that fairness cannot address gender injustice while ignoring colonialism, or class injustice while ignoring gender. Every civilization that achieved meaningful fairness eventually recognized this: single-axis solutions fail. A system that gives women access to education while denying indigenous people literacy hasn't solved the fairness problem, only shifted it. Sor Juana's own path—secured through exceptional connections—wasn't available to most women like her. Modern fairness requires examining how identity categories combine, how policies affect people at intersections, and how progress in one dimension can leave others behind. Solutions must address compound injustices simultaneously.