Understanding individual acts of harm within larger structures of injustice, so accountability addresses both personal responsibility and structural change.
Sor Juana lived within systems that legally excluded women from education, intellectual life, and autonomous choice. Her personal conflicts with authority figures must be understood within this oppressive context. This concept challenges punitive justice's tendency to isolate individual acts from systemic causes. When a person harms another while operating within oppressive systems, true accountability requires addressing both. Restorative approaches informed by Sor Juana's wisdom ask: what structures enabled this harm? What injustices does this incident reveal? Punishment alone leaves systems intact. By examining how gender, class, power, and access shaped both the harm and the response to it, justice becomes transformative rather than merely retributive. This means holding individuals accountable while simultaneously working to dismantle the conditions that produce harm. Sor Juana's example shows that personal integrity and systemic critique are inseparable components of genuine justice.
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