Epistemic Disobedience as Knowledge Practice

Sor Juana explicitly disobeyed church authorities who told her what women could study and believe. Epistemic disobedience means rejecting the role of the uninformed subject—refusing to accept that your gender, race, caste, or sexuality disqualifies you from knowing. In intersectional practice, this is recognizing that marginalized people are already theorizing their own oppression, even when institutions deny them titles or platforms. A disabled person's knowledge of ableism, a trans person's understanding of gender, a colonized person's insight into power—these are not opinions but hard-won epistemologies. Sor Juana's insistence on her right to know—despite punishment—models how intersectionality begins with claiming the authority to interpret your own experience and the world.