One of the elements that label as a feminist: the courage to dishonor the men and openly express his opinion and criticism, not only was criticized by the church, but she became a target of the Spanish Inquisition. This was a time when the Counter-Reformation was in full swing and anyone who challenged the social values and church dogma was investigated by the Spanish Inquisition on suspicion of heresy (Paz, 1989). The risks you took, speak highly of his strong personality and lack of fear towards those who tried to suppress independent thinking, especially when brought up the issue of women’s rights. This shows that not only was a feminist through her literary work, but had the courage to put their lives at risk just to be heard and bring attention to abuses of the rights of women to higher education.
The most powerful light on the feminist spirit takes the charge is aggressive towards men, more specifically the issue of sexism (Merriman, 1999). For Sor Juana was incomprehensible why men have the right to accuse women, most often without facts to support his accusations, when they did the same thing. His poem “quatrains” speaks loudly of the rights of women to be respected as human beings first and be liberated from false accusations (Chang-Rodríguez, 2008).
