Feminist Philosophy Reflections

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Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz

B. 1648 - 1695 in Mexico, she was a Nun and an illicit philosopher, writer, and composer.

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz is an icon. Her sheer audacity in the most subliminal of ways proves how much of an erudite she was. She became a nun so she can be free from the chains of wifely duties and motherhood. She spent her leisurely hours in the forbidden chambers of the library, reading anything and everything. It wasn't so much of a subject that sparked her deep desire to know, but rather the desire itself, as she has called it, her God-given desire and curiosity to simply understand. All that she ever wanted to do was understand, when she didn't have access to books, when her religious guilt got the better of her, she could not stop fighting to know. It was instinctual, her brain could not stop cogitating, it was then that she realized that the books did not matter. They were only a tool to appease her already moving mind, and no one can take that moving mind away from her, not even her own religious will. Therefore, she conceded. She accepted that this was what god wanted, that women needed to learn, that women were capable of learning. Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz teaches me that it is okay to simply fulfill that desire to know. To feed the appetite of gaping curiosity, not for the sake of anything other than wanting to understand.