Rhetorical Submission as Intellectual Strategy

Sor Juana frequently prefaced her intellectual work with declarations of humility, obedience, and submission to religious and patriarchal authority—a rhetorical strategy that made her dangerous ideas more palatable to those who might otherwise suppress them. This concept examines how cisgender individuals, particularly those assigned female, often must employ strategic performances of compliance to advance their actual intellectual and creative agendas. Her famous Response defended her right to knowledge while couching it in deferential language toward authority figures. For those examining cisgender identity, this reveals how assigned gender creates a specific burden: the requirement to perform submission in order to claim space for authentic expression. Understanding Sor Juana's rhetorical strategy means recognizing both its necessity and its cost—the cognitive labor required to maintain a performance of compliance while pursuing authentic intellectual work. This concept illuminates how cisgender identity, particularly feminine cisgender identity, often requires this double consciousness, this constant translation between inner conviction and outer performance.