In her mid-teens, Juana was sent to live with her aunt in Mexico City by then, rumors of her prodigious intellect had spread to the capital and she was presented at the court of a new viceregal couple, Antonio Sebastian de Toledo (the Marquis de Mancera) and Leonor Carreto. In a somewhat dramatic teenage display of commitment to her education, Juana cut off her hair every time she made a mistake in Latin. She asked to be allowed to disguise herself as a man so that she could go to university, but was not given permission and had to continue to tutor herself. Juana taught herself all she could by reading her grandfather’s library and soon mastered logic, Latin and the Aztec language Nahuatl. At the age of three, she followed an older sister to school and convinced a teacher to show her how to read. She was officially registered as “a daughter of the Church” because her parents were unmarried. Juana was born in 1648 in San Miguel Nepantla, Mexico, near Mexico City. In honor of Women’s History Month, I want to honor my favorite (and too-little-known) feminist, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th century nun, poet and scholar.
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