Justice Claims Within Family Systems

Sor Juana's courageous arguments about justice and rights extend to the family realm: she refused to accept that hierarchy based on gender, age, or role should go unquestioned. For parents navigating identity changes, this concept names an often-invisible problem—the injustice of unequal responsibility distribution, the unfair expectation that one parent (typically the mother) will lose selfhood while another remains intact. Justice claims within family systems mean naming these imbalances aloud: 'This distribution of care labor is unjust.' 'My loss of identity is not natural or inevitable.' 'Both parents deserve to remain whole people.' Sor Juana's tradition of demanding justice suggests that family relationships, like all relationships, are subject to principles of fairness and equity. Parents who frame their struggles in terms of justice rather than guilt or inadequacy gain clearer vision of what actually needs to change—not their fundamental worth, but the structures that demand their self-erasure.