Knowledge as Resistance and Survival

For Sor Juana, knowledge was not an abstract good—it was a lifeline. In a colonial convent where her agency was restricted, study became her territory of freedom. She read, wrote, and thought precisely because institutional power sought to constrain her. This concept reframes education and intellectual pursuit not as privileges for the elite but as practices of survival and self-preservation for the marginalized. Fairness, in this view, means recognizing that access to knowledge is access to power over one's own life. Sor Juana's example teaches that civilizations claiming fairness must make learning available to all, especially to those society has deemed undeserving. Knowledge becomes resistance when those in power try to control it; it becomes fair when it flows freely. Her life demonstrates that the pursuit of truth is not separate from the pursuit of justice—they are the same struggle.