Gender, Authority, and Religious Knowing

As a woman, Sor Juana was systematically excluded from formal education, ordained ministry, and theological authority—yet she became one of the era's greatest intellectuals. Her life documents the relationship between gender and epistemic authority. This concept matters for religious transition because gender often shapes why and how people doubt and leave. Women face particular pressures to obey, submit, and accept doctrine uncritically. Sor Juana's example shows that reclaiming one's authority to know—to question, interpret, and decide—is inseparable from gender justice. For women moving through religious transition, this concept frames doubting as an assertion of intellectual equality. Leaving may represent refusal to accept gendered subordination masked as spirituality. Sor Juana teaches that women's ways of knowing, women's questions, and women's departures from tradition are legitimate expressions of human dignity and rational autonomy.