Sor Juana's mastery of rhetoric and argument demonstrates that true intellectual equality requires equal capacity to persuade, not merely equal right to speak.
A just society guarantees the right to speak, but Rawlsian justice demands more: equal meaningful capacity to be heard and persuade. Sor Juana was an extraordinarily skilled rhetor—she could construct arguments that revealed contradictions in her opponents' positions, use wit and poetry to disarm censors, and appeal to authority in ways that respected hierarchy while advancing her claims. She had to develop these sophisticated strategies precisely because direct assertion of her authority was forbidden. Her tradition teaches that rhetorical justice requires examining not only whether marginalized groups can speak, but whether they can speak in ways that actually influence outcomes. This means addressing disparities in education, confidence, access to platforms, and cultural authority to define what counts as persuasive. A woman's argument might be logically superior yet dismissed as emotional; a colonized intellectual's insight might be brilliant yet attributed to European sources. For institutions pursuing justice, this requires leveling the rhetorical playing field: ensuring that all participants have developed persuasive capacity, that diverse argumentative styles are respected, and that systematic dismissal of particular voices is challenged. Sor Juana's rhetorical genius was born from necessity; just systems should not require such genius from the marginalized.
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