Knowledge as Contested Terrain

In Sor Juana's time, women's intellectual capacity was literally questioned, and women's knowledge was deemed unsuitable or improper. Today, intersectional analysis reveals that knowledge production itself is a contested terrain. Whose research gets funded? Whose stories get published? Whose expertise is recognized? Whose lived experience counts as valid data? Medical knowledge that ignores Black women's pain, psychological frameworks that pathologize cultural difference, technological systems designed without input from disabled users—all reflect how power shapes what gets known and how. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to study theology, philosophy, and mathematics was an assertion that women's intellectual engagement mattered and could produce valid knowledge. Contemporary intersectional practice means interrogating the politics of knowledge in every domain: questioning whose perspectives are centered, whose are marginalized, and who profits from particular knowledge regimes. It means creating space for counter-knowledges generated by those whose expertise comes from navigating intersecting oppressions.