Intersectional Oppression: Humans and Animals

Sor Juana experienced intersecting oppressions—as a woman, a person of mixed heritage, and a member of a colonized society—and recognized how power systems reinforce each other. This intersectional lens reveals that animal exploitation operates through identical mechanisms: dehumanization, denial of agency, and economic exploitation justify both slavery and factory farming. Those deemed 'other'—whether women, indigenous peoples, or animals—are stripped of intellectual and moral status to serve dominant interests. Sor Juana's resistance to these categorizations suggests a unified ethical stance: the same patriarchal, colonial, anthropocentric logic that justified dominating women also justifies dominating nature and animals. Animal rights thus becomes inseparable from human justice movements, all challenging the hierarchies that Sor Juana spent her life interrogating and resisting.