The Rights of Those We Cannot See

Sor Juana advocated for the dignity and rights of those denied voice and visibility—enslaved people, indigenous peoples, women excluded from institutions. This principle extends to ethical consumption's central challenge: the invisibility of those who make our things. The garment worker in Bangladesh, the cocoa farmer in Côte d'Ivoire, the miner in the Congo—their faces rarely appear in marketing. Sor Juana's insistence on seeing the dignity of the invisible teaches us to make visible and honor those hidden in supply chains. Ethical consumption means refusing the ease of invisibility; it means consciously bringing to mind the people whose labor and land enable our consumption. This intellectual and moral work—refusing invisibility—transforms how we choose. We cannot ethically consume if we pretend those affected by our choices don't matter because we don't see them. Sor Juana's own fight against invisibility, her refusal to accept silence, models this practice. By affirming the rights and dignity of distant producers and ecosystems, we consume with awareness that our choices ripple across the world, affecting real lives and real places.