Gender in Mexican Intellectual History Juana Inez

Gender in Mexican Intellectual History

Juana Inez Ramirez de Asbaje, also known as Juana Ines de la Cruz, was an amazing woman in both Latin American and world history. Here was a woman writing in the 17th century who was willing to discuss the sexual practices of the males around her and to criticize them. Being a nun, this was even more out of the ordinary and makes Asbaje an even more extraordinary figure. In the 1600s, a woman's place was at the home either as a servant or as a bearer of children to a proper husband. It was not proper for a female to be educated or to think. For many women who were born with an untimely and unfortunate intellect, the only venue for them to learn was by entering the church. In her "Response to Sor Filotea," she states that as a young girl, Asbaje asked her mother if she could be dressed as a young boy and secretly enter university so that she could study amongst intellectual equals (de Cruz 775). Nuns were the only women who were encouraged to learn to read, write, and to express themselves, but even that was within a limited capacity. At the time of her writings, Mexico was still a province of the Spanish empire. As a colony, the land was driven by laws that originated from across the Atlantic. During the period of her work in the late 1600s, the Spanish Inquisition was still going on in the homeland. Thus, it was an especially dangerous time for anyone, let alone a woman, to "think out loud." She could have been charged with heresy, excommunicated from the Catholic Church, tortured, or even executed for her outlandish thinking. The legacy of Juana Inez Ramirez de Asbaje has been carried throughout history by her writings.

She was born in modest circumstances. As the daughter of an unwed mother and thus labeled illegitimate, it was difficult for the young woman to receive the education and nurturing she so desperately needed and richly deserved. At the time, there was still a large social stigma attached to illegitimacy which limited her prospects as an adult. Although her mother was able to get her later siblings married off, the strange intellectual illegitimate daughter was not so easily placed in any kind of union. Juana had no dowry to speak of and already her abnormal ability to think and express herself had soured her reputation in the local community.

In the poem "Hombres Necios," Juana de Cruz (as she is most commonly referred to) defends womankind to an unseen, unnamed male. She makes an appeal to this other being that women are as human as their male counterparts. They should be praised for the same talents and allowed to possess the same weaknesses. By not stating directly who it is that de Cruz is arguing with, she really makes an appeal to the entire male gender, particularly those of Mexican or Spanish descent.

She made a more direct rebuttal to an anti-feminist diatribe when she wrote in "Response to Sor Filotea." At the time, one of the bishops who knew de Cruz was using the local printers to send messages to the local people about the inherent wickedness of intelligent women. He directed his anger at the young nun who he felt was setting a poor example for the local feminine population. As a woman of God, it was her job to instruct women in how to be subservient and unquestioning to their male superiors. De Cruz, in a fashion which showed her amazing abilities, used the art form to send a reply which not only questioned the bishop's thesis, but all men's belief in the inferior woman.

De Cruz absolutely did not believe that women were in any way inferior to men. Rather, they were put into positions of subservience because of social designations and thus women became ignorant out of fear and lack of use of their minds. In her poem "Redondillo," de Cruz wrote:

Stupid men imputing shame

On a woman unreasonably,

Although you never see,

You cause the things you blame (74).

In the modern moment, most cultures have come to understand and appreciate that there is no inherent difference between the leadership or intellectual capacities of the various genders. But, when de Cruz was writing, these ideas were outlandish and indeed dangerous. In these lines alone, she is challenging the entire male population to see woman as she really is, without the sociological implications thrust upon her by the culture.