Rights-Based Consumption Framework

Sor Juana argued vigorously for rights—intellectual rights, women's rights, human dignity. She framed her demands not as charity requests but as justice claims. Applied to consumption, a rights-based framework refuses the charity model where corporations are praised for minimal ethical improvements. Instead, it asks: do workers have fundamental rights? Fair wages are not generosity but a right. Safe conditions are not a benefit but a right. Environmental protection is not optional but a right. This framework changes ethical consumption from consumer benevolence into accountability for rights protection. You don't purchase from ethical brands to feel virtuous—you purchase from companies respecting workers' and communities' basic rights as a minimum requirement. This aligns with Sor Juana's intellectual legacy: she insisted on rights not as privileges granted by the powerful but as inherent human entitlements. A rights-based approach to consumption becomes more demanding but also clearer and more principled. It rejects the rhetoric of corporate social responsibility when it masks ongoing exploitation, insisting instead on systemic change that treats workers and communities as rights-holders rather than beneficiaries of charity.