The seventeenth-century Mexican nun who built a library inside a convent and wrote one of the boldest defences ever made of a woman's right to think.
This is a talking lesson, not a reading one. So before a single fact, the floor is yours.
Just her name and one line she wrote: “If Aristotle had cooked, he would have written much more.” What does that line make you think about her — before you know anything else? Have you heard of her? Just talk.
Three short beats. After each one, you do the talking.
Juana Inés de Asbaje was born near Mexico City, in what was then New Spain — in 1648 or 1651; two different baptism records exist, and scholars still debate which is hers. As a child she hid in the chapel of her grandfather's estate to read the books in his library, something forbidden to girls. Later she wrote that, on hearing that Mexico City had a university, she begged her mother to dress her in boys' clothes so she could study there. Her mother said no.
In 1664 she was sent to Mexico City and became a lady-in-waiting at the viceroy's court. To test her, the viceroy gathered theologians, jurists, philosophers and poets to question the 17-year-old without warning; her answers astonished them. Then, in 1669, she entered the Hieronymite convent of San Jerónimo, and stayed there until her death. In her own words, she chose the convent because of her “total rejection of marriage” (our translation). In her convent rooms she collected a large library, received visitors — including two vicereines — and wrote poetry, plays and music. Her admirers called her “the Tenth Muse”.
In November 1690 the Bishop of Puebla published one of her letters — a critique of a famous sermon — without her permission, under the pen name “Sor Filotea”, and added his own letter telling her to focus on religious rather than worldly studies. Her answer, the Respuesta a Sor Filotea, dated 1 March 1691, is a defence of women's right to learn. By 1693 she seems to have stopped writing. A penitential document from 1694 bears her name, signed “I, the worst of all”, though some question whether its tone is really hers. She died on 17 April 1695 after nursing sister nuns during an epidemic.
Sor Juana's big idea is that the mind cannot be fenced in — not by sex, not by walls, not by an official's letter. I will hand it to you in small pieces. After each piece, you talk — I will mostly listen.
In the Respuesta, she recalls that a superior once ordered her not to study. For about three months she obeyed and did not touch a book — but, she says, she could not stop thinking. Then she lists the “natural secrets” she has discovered while cooking: an egg holds together and fries in butter or oil but falls apart in syrup; the yolk and the white of the same egg behave in opposite ways. With heavy irony she asks: “what can we women know, but kitchen philosophies?” And then her punchline: “Si Aristóteles hubiera guisado, mucho más hubiera escrito” — “If Aristotle had cooked, he would have written much more.” (Translations ours.)
Before I go on: what everyday place in your life — a kitchen, a bus, a workplace, a game — has quietly taught you something real about how the world works? Why do we not count that as “knowledge”?
The Respuesta argues that women have a right to formal education, and to act as intellectual authorities — not only by writing but by publishing. She suggested that learned older women could teach girls. She also described punishing herself as a girl: she would cut off four to six fingers' width of her hair and set herself something to learn before it grew back; if it grew back first, she cut it again — because, she wrote, a head so bare of knowledge did not deserve to be dressed in hair (our paraphrase).
Her poetry carries the same argument with sharper teeth. In the 1680s she wrote “Hombres necios”: “Hombres necios que acusáis / a la mujer sin razón, / sin ver que sois la ocasión / de lo mismo que culpáis” — in Muriel Kittel's translation, “You foolish men, who accuse / Women without good reason, / You are the cause of what you blame.” And in one sonnet she asks the world why it persecutes her, when all she wants is “to fix beauty in my intellect, and never my intellect fix on beauty” (Edith Grossman's translation).
Her wit was a weapon: she argued from inside the rules of her world, and used them so precisely that the rules themselves began to look ridiculous.
“Talent will always find a way, whatever the rules.” Argue for it or against it — with Sor Juana's story and real examples from today. Build your case, then I will push back and you defend it.
Sor Juana wrote in almost every form of her time. Glance at these, then tell me which one you would actually read first, and why that one.
| Work | What it is | The idea underneath |
|---|---|---|
| Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691) | Her long letter answering the bishop who told her to stop secular study. | A woman's right to learn, to teach and to be heard. |
| “Hombres necios” | A satirical poem written in the 1680s. | Men blame women for the very faults they create — a double standard laid bare. |
| Primero sueño (“First Dream”) | Her longest philosophical poem: a soul rises during sleep and tries to understand the whole universe. | The mind's hunger to know everything — and the humility of learning one thing at a time. |
| Inundación castálida | Her first volume of poetry, published in Spain with the support of a vicereine. | Patronage carried her voice from a convent in Mexico to readers in Europe. |
Ten words you need to discuss Sor Juana properly — and that work just as well for any serious conversation about education, power and freedom of thought. Tap to reveal the meaning and an example.
Pick any five of these words and say five full sentences about Sor Juana or about freedom of thought today — out loud, right now. Don't move on until all five are used.
This whole lesson is you doing the talking. These are the moves that let you speculate, hedge and push back like a C1 speaker — not just "I think" every time.
I'll make a bold claim — “Sor Juana was lucky: she had rich patrons and a library. Her story tells us nothing about ordinary women.” Answer me using at least one phrase from each box above: first speculate, then take a position, then complicate it. Keep going until you've used all three.
Reach for these instead of “shows” or “says” when you describe Sor Juana's work.
1. In the Respuesta, she ____ women's right to study with examples from scripture and history.
2. “Hombres necios” ____ the hypocrisy of men who blame women for their own behaviour.
3. With the Aristotle line, she ____ the idea that cooking and philosophy belong to different worlds.
4. By publishing, she ____ women's place as intellectual authorities, not just readers.
1. defends / argues for
2. satirises / exposes
3. dismantles / subverts
4. asserts / legitimises
These are not the only correct answers — defend your choice if it works.
These are Sor Juana's questions, handed to you. The timer is on your side: it stops you finishing in ten seconds and forces you to develop the idea. Use the speculating and position-taking phrases from the last tab, and at least one of the idea-verbs.
Sor Juana found physics and chemistry in an egg and a pan of syrup. Think of an everyday activity that is usually seen as “not intellectual” — cooking, caring for children, fixing cars, playing a video game.
Argue one side: is the knowledge in that activity as real and valuable as knowledge from books — or is there an important difference? Build a real case — give your example, raise the strongest objection to your own view, then answer it.
To get time, books and freedom to think, Sor Juana accepted a life of strict religious rules and gave up marriage.
What freedom would you give up to gain another — and is there a modern version of her bargain (a job, a city, a relationship)? Make the case with one concrete example from your real life.
Your turn to write a Respuesta. Think of a time someone told you — or someone like you — to stop studying, doing or saying something, “for your own good”.
Answer them the way she did: politely, with humour, and with arguments they cannot easily reject. I will play the bishop and push back, and you defend your case.
You introduced me to Sor Juana, so you get the last word. Pick the questions that grab you — there are no model answers here.
Finish this, out loud, in a single well-built sentence — and use one idea-verb and one speculating phrase from Tab 2:
"What Sor Juana really does, I think, is…"