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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz:
Sor Juana
Brilliant Poet, Pre-Feminist and Iconoclastic Nun.

Vitals:
Born: Juana de Asbaje y Ramirez in San Miguel Nepantla, Mexico around 1650.
Childhood: Having been abandoned by her father at a young age, the illegitimate Juana was sent to live with her aunt in Mexico City when she was eight years old. She was an astute child, taking an interest in latin, litterature and poetry. At 15, she became a lady-in-waiting to the aristocratic Viceirina, the Marquise de Mancera, a highly-regarded position at the time.
Above Average: Juana, the Marquise's favourite, wrote several plays and many poems during her service. She was later appointed court poet, dedicating most of her writing to her superiour.
Confused Crossraods: After a brief stint at the stringent Convent of the Carmelitas Descalzas, she took her vows of celibacy at the lax Convent of San Jerónimo. Because she was the illegitimate child of affluent parents, Sor Juana could not marry into a wealthy family. Although she had never exhibited strong religious conviction, the life of a nun gave her the intellectual freedom she desired.
Learned Life: Sor Juana flourished at the convent, living a relatively luxurious life with a personal servant and an enormous library. She wrote many plays, religious ( El Divino Narciso) and secular ( Los Empeños de una Casa), and a plethora of poetry: "My Divine Lysis" and "Disillusionment," to name a few.
Multi-Talented: In 1680, the new Viceroy's wife appointed Sor Juana to design the ceremonial arches dedicated to the couple. Her artistic ingenuity was apparent in the elaborate murals comparing the couple to the ancient Gods Neptune and Amphitrite.
Diverted Creativity: While Sor Juana did have an incredible amount of intellectual power and freedom for a woman of her time and social status, much of her creative energies were directed towards flattering the Mexican nobility.
Secular Sista: As a nun who wrote secular plays, Sor Juana had garnered the intense disapproval of the misogynous Archbishop of Mexico.
Standing her Ground: When her critique of a sermon by Antonio de Vieyra, a Portuguese cleric whom the Archbishop admired, was published in 1690 by Fernández de Santa Cruz, the Bishop of Puebla, the Archbishop had the excuse he needed to ruin her career.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: In reality, Santa Cruz had used Sor Juana as a pawn in personal crusade against the Archbishop and the Mexican religious institution.
Right-on Rebuttle: Although she was expected to present an apology, she wrote a monumental defense of women's rights to education and intellectual freedom fro nuns, drawing her arguments from several Biblical figures.
Fall from Grace: As a result of her scandalous response, she was pressured into selling her belongings and dedicated the rest of her life to modest devotion. She died in 1695 of an epidemic that ravaged the convent.
Rockin' Quote: "Who has forbidden women to engage in private and individual studies? Have they not a rational soul as men do? Well, then, why cannot a woman profit by the privilege of enlightenment as they do?...What divine revelation, what rule of the Church, what reasonable judgement formulated such a severe law for us women?"
Lasting Legacy: Though she died condemned and poor, Sor Juana is considered to be one of the most influential Spanish poets of her time and a fiery forerunner to the feminist movement.
You Men
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz:


Silly, you men-so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman's mind.

After you've won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave--
you, that coaxed her into shame.

You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.

When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.

Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.

For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?

Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you're turned away,
you sneer if you've been gratified.

With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful--
succumbing, you call her lewd.

Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.

What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?

Still, whether it's torment or anger--
and both ways you've yourselves to blame--
God bless the woman who won't have you,
no matter how loud you complain.

It's your persistent entreaties
that change her from timid to bold.
Having made her thereby naughty,
you would have her good as gold.

So where does the greater guilt lie
for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness
or the woman debased by his plea?

Or which is more to be blamed--
though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money
or the man who pays money to sin?

So why are you men all so stunned
at the thought you're all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you've made them
or make of them what you can like.

If you'd give up pursuing them,
you'd discover, without a doubt,
you've a stronger case to make
against those who seek you out.

I well know what powerful arms
you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied
with the world, the flesh, and the devil!

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