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Despite extraordinary medical advances throughout history, more than 800 women still die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth – 99 per cent of them in developing countries.

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Agnodice or Agnodike (Ancient Greek: Ἀγνοδίκη , Greek pronunciation: c. 4th century BCE) was supposedly the first female midwife or physician in ancient Athens. Her story is told by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus in his Fabulae.

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1691 - Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz - Writer: "One can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper."

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1691 - Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz - Writer: "One can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper."

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Even with substantial progress in achieving gender parity at all levels of education, disparities remain in some developing regions. For instance, only 70 girls are enrolled for every 100 boys in tertiary level education in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Juana de Asuaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1648 - 17 April 1695), was a colonial Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, as well as a Hieronymite nun, nicknamed " The Tenth Muse" and " The Phoenix of America" by her contemporary critics. As a Spanish- criolla from the New Spain, she was among the main American-born contributors to the Spanish Golden Age, alongside Juan Ruiz de Alarcón and Garcilaso de la Vega "el Inca", and is presently considered one of the most important female authors in Spanish language literature and the literature of Mexico.

Throughout history Sor Juana's significance to different communities has varied significantly, having been presented as a candidate for Catholic sainthood, a symbol of Mexican nationalism, freedom of speech, women's rights, sexual diversity, and others, making her a figure of great controversy and debate to this day.

Juana was born in San Miguel Nepantla (presently Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) near Mexico City as the illegitimate daughter of Don Pedro Manuel de Asuaje y Vargas-Machuca, a Spanish navy captain from the Canary Islands involved in colonial transatlantic shipping and trade, and Doña Isabel Ramírez de Santillana y Rendón, a distinguished criolla, whose father leased the Hacienda de Panoaya, near Mexico City.

Hacienda of Panoaya in Amecameca, residence of the Ramírez de Santillana family.

There are two different baptism registrations that have been attributed to her, one under the name of "Juana" in 1648, and another one under the name of "Inés" in 1651, still a matter of academic research and debate. There is, nevertheless agreement that she was one of the three children that Doña Isabel Ramírez de Santillana had out of wedlock with Don Pedro de Asuaje. Despite having had an occasional contact with her father as a child, Sor Juana's infancy occurred entirely around her mother's family in the hacienda of Panaoya, in Amecameca, leased by her maternal grandfather, and home to the ample Ramírez de Santillana family. Among her relatives, several women with the name "Inés" have been noted, included her grandmother Inés de Brenes, her maternal-aunt Inés Ramírez de Santillana, and her first-cousin Inés de Brenes y Mendoza, married to a grandson of Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán, the first ever published American-born poet.

Manuscript page from Libro de professiones y elecciones de prioras y vicarias del Convento de San Gerónimo, 1586-1713, which Sor Juana signed in ink and her own blood

Later described as child prodigy, Sor Juana was educated at home at the Hacienda de Papaya, becoming fluent in both Latin and Nahuatl, and learning philosophy, and mathematics. She was given free access to her grandfather's private library.

During her childhood, Inés often hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. By the age of three, she had learned how to read and write Latin. By the age of five, she reportedly could do accounts. At age eight, she composed a poem on the Eucharist. By adolescence, Inés had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children. She also learned the Aztec language of Nahuatl and wrote some short poems in that language.

Statue of Sor Juana Inés in Madrid, Spain.

In 1664, at the age of 16, Inés was sent to live in Mexico City. She asked her mother's permission to disguise herself as a male student so that she could enter the university there, without success. Without the ability to obtain a formal education, Juana continued her studies privately. Her family's influential position had gained her the position of lady-in-waiting at the colonial viceroy's court, where she came under the tutelage of the Vicereine Donna Eleonora del Carretto, a member of one of Italy's most prominent families, and wife of the Viceroy of New Spain Don Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, Marquis of Mancera. The viceroy Marquis de Mancera, wishing to test the learning and intelligence of the 17-year-old, invited several theologians, jurists, philosophers, and poets to a meeting, during which she had to answer many questions unprepared and explain several difficult points on various scientific and literary subjects. The manner in which she acquitted herself astonished all present and greatly increased her reputation. Her literary accomplishments garnered her fame throughout New Spain. She was much admired in the viceregal court, and she received several proposals of marriage, which she declined.

After joining a nunnery in 1667, Sor Juana began writing poetry and prose dealing with such topics as love, environmentalism, feminism, and religion. She turned her nun's quarters into a salon, visited by New Spain's female intellectual elite, including Doña Eleonora del Carreto, Marchioness of Mancera, and Doña Maria Luisa Gonzaga, Countess of Paredes de Nava, both Vicereines of the New Spain, among others. Her criticism of misogyny and the hypocrisy of men led to her condemnation by the Bishop of Puebla, and in 1694 she was forced to sell her collection of books and focus on charity towards the poor. She died the next year, having caught the plague while treating her sisters.

Hieronymite House of Worship

First known portrait of Sor Juana, by Juan de Miranda (c. 1680).

In 1667, she entered the Monastery of St. Joseph, a community of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, as a postulant, where she remained but a few months. Later, in 1669, she entered the monastery of the Hieronymite nuns, which had more relaxed rules, where she changed her name to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, probably in reference to Sor Juana de la Cruz Vázquez Gutiérrez who was a Spanish nun whose intellectual accomplishments earned her one of the few dispensations for women to preach the gospel. Another potential namesake was Saint Juan de la Cruz, one of the most accomplished authors of the Spanish Baroque. She chose to become a nun so that she could study as she wished since she wanted "to have no fixed occupation which might curtail my freedom to study."

In the convent and perhaps earlier, Sor Juana became intimate friends with Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, who visited her in the convent's locutorio. She stayed cloistered in the Convent of Santa Paula of the Hieronymite in Mexico City from 1669 until her death in 1695, and there she studied, wrote, and collected a large library of books. The Viceroy and Vicereine of New Spain became her patrons; they supported her and had her writings published in Spain. She addressed some of her poems to paintings of her friend and patron María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, daughter of Vespasiano Gonzaga, Duca di Guastala, Luzara e Rechiolo and Inés María Manrique, 9th Countess de Paredes, which she also addressed as Lísida.

Sor Juana's signature in a clearer sight.

In November 1690, the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz published, under the pseudonym of Sor Filotea, and without her permission, Sor Juana's critique of a 40-year-old sermon by Father António Vieira, a Portuguese Jesuit preacher. Although Sor Juana's intentions for the work, called Carta Atenagórica are left to interpretation, many scholars have opted to interpret the work as a challenge to the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. Along with Carta Atenagórica, the bishop also published his own letter in which he said she should focus on religious instead of secular studies. He published his criticisms to use them to his advantage against the priest, and while he agreed with her criticisms, he believed that as a woman, she should devote herself to prayer and give up her writings.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Friar Miguel de Herrera (1700-1789),

In response to her critics, Sor Juana wrote a letter, Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz ( Reply to Sister Philotea), in which she defended women's right to formal education. She also advocated for women's right to serve as intellectual authorities, not only through the act of writing, but also through the publication of their writing. By putting women, specifically older women, in positions of authority, Sor Juana argued, women could educate other women. Resultingly, Sor Juana argued, this practice could also avoid potentially dangerous situations involving male teachers in intimate settings with young female students. In 1691, she was reprimanded and ordered to stop writing after the exposure of a private letter in which she wrote of the right of women to education.

In addition to her status as a woman in a self-prescribed position of authority, Sor Juana's radical position made her an increasingly controversial figure. She famously remarked by quoting an Aragonese poet and echoing St. Teresa of Ávila: "One can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper." In response, Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, Archbishop of Mexico joined other high-ranking officials in condemning Sor Juana's "waywardness." In addition to opposition she received for challenging the patriarchal structure of the Catholic Church, Sor Juana was repeatedly criticized for believing that her writing could achieve the same philanthropic goals as community work.

By 1693, she seemingly ceased writing to avoid risking official censure. Although there is no undisputed evidence of her renouncing her writing, there are documents showing her agreeing to undergo penance. Her name is affixed to such a document in 1694, but the tone of the supposed handwritten penitentials is in rhetorical and autocratic, in contrast to her normally lyrical style. One is signed " Yo, la Peor de Todas" ("I, the worst of all women"). She is said to have sold all her books, then an extensive library of more than 4,000 volumes, as well as her musical and scientific instruments. Other sources report that her defiance toward the Church led to the confiscation of all of her books and instruments, although the bishop himself agreed with the contents of her letters.

Of more than one hundred unpublished works, only a few of her writings have survived, which are known as the Complete Works. According to Octavio Paz, her writings were saved by the vicereine.

She died after ministering to other nuns stricken during a plague, on 17 April 1695. Sigüenza y Góngora delivered the eulogy at her funeral.

The former Convent of St Jerome in Mexico City.

First Dream, a long philosophical and descriptive (a poetic form combining verses of 7 and 11 syllables), "deals with the shadow of night beneath which a person falls asleep in the midst of quietness and silence, where night and day animals participate, either dozing or sleeping, all urged to silence and rest by Harpocrates. The person's body ceases its ordinary operations, which are described in physiological and symbolical terms, ending with the activity of the imagination as an image-reflecting apparatus: the Pharos. From this moment, her soul, in a dream, sees itself free at the summit of her own intellect; in other words, at the apex of a pyramid-like mount, which aims at God and is luminous.

There, perched like an eagle, she contemplates the whole creation, but fails to comprehend such a sight in a single concept. Dazzled, the soul's intellect faces its own shipwreck, caused mainly by trying to understand the overwhelming abundance of the universe, until reason undertakes that enterprise, beginning with each individual creation, and processing them one by one, helped by the ten categories of Aristotle.

The soul cannot get beyond questioning herself about the traits and causes of a fountain and a flower, intimating perhaps that his method constitutes a useless effort, since it must take into account all the details, accidents, and mysteries of each being. By that time, the body has consumed all its nourishment, and it starts to move and wake up, soul and body are reunited. The poem ends with the Sun overcoming Night in battle between luminous and dark armies, and with the poet's awakening.

Convent of Santa Paula (Seville)

Sor Juana's first volume of poetry, Inundación castálida, was published in Spain by the Vicereine Maria Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzága, Countess of Paredes, Marquise de la Laguna. Many of her poems dealt with the subject of love and sensuality. Colombian-American translator Jaime Manrique described her poetry thus: "her love poems are expressions of a complex and ambivalent modern psyche, and because they are so passionate and ferocious that when we read them we feel consumed by the naked intensity she achieves." One of Sor Juana's sonnets:

Soneto 173

Sonnet 173 in Edith Grossman's 2014 translation

Efectos muy penosos de amor, y que no por grandes se igualan con las prendas de quien le causa

¿Vesme, Alcino, que atada a la cadena
de Amor, paso en sus hierros aherrojada,
mísera esclavitud, desesperada
de libertad, y de consuelo ajena?

¿Ves de dolor y angustia el alma llena,
de tan fieros tormentos lastimada,
y entre las vivas llamas abrasada
juzgarse por indigna de su pena?

¿Vesme seguir sin alma un desatino
que yo misma condeno por extraño?
¿Vesme derramar sangre en el camino

siguiendo los vestigios de un engaño?
¿Muy admirado estás? Pues ves, Alcino:
más merece la causa de mi daño.

The very distressing effects of love, but no matter how great, they do not equal the qualities of the one who causes them

Do you see me, Alcino, here am I caught
in the chains of love, shackled in its irons,
a wretched slave despairing of her freedom,
and so far, so distant from consolation?

Do you see my soul filled with pain and anguish,
wounded by torments so savage, so fierce,
burned in the midst of living flames and judging
herself unworthy of her castigation?

Do you see me without a soul, pursuing
a folly I myself condemn as strange?
Do you see me bleeding along the way

as I follow the trail of an illusion?
Are you very surprised? See then, Alcino:
the cause of harm to me deserves much more.

Hombres Necios (Sátira Filosófica) or You foolish men (Philosophical satire)

Sor Juana's Hombres Necios (Foolish men), written in the 1680s, is among the first proto-feminist literary works in the Americas that explores the double standards of men while also accusing men of trying to diminish a woman's honor. During seventeenth-century Mexico the society was heavily patriarchal, but Sor Juana managed to publish this work, which added to the backlash she would eventually face from the Church. Yet Sor Juana was driven by a conviction for women's education and was determined to apply her writing to challenge those who believed a woman's intellectual abilities were irrelevant.

Erin Elizabeth details how Sor Juana structured the poem to be centered on accusations onto men that elevate the meaning behind the poem. Sor Juana emphasizes the male irrationality with a man's ability and behavior to harm a woman by deeming her as "impure" by ruining her honor and reputation. Sor Juana does this by casting the blame on men arguing that they are the root cause of their mistakes and create problems for women to avoid their own mistakes. Elizabeth argues that by utilizing impurity and the concept of "fall from grace", Hombres Necios implores the double standards men use on women that creates a path for women leaving them in situations they cannot win. While also including the names of Thais and Lucretia along with the concept of prostitution to add on how men use women and leave them helpless with nothing but the blame and hatred.

Hombres necios explored the idea of why women were frequently held guilty for the sins that men incited onto them. Sor Juana expresses her voice through the use of the Baroque literary style, which was prevalent at her time, in a manner that can be understood. Today it is often seen as a pro-feminist love letter, and even in a "machista" Latin American society it has been popular among the population.

Hombres Necios, Satira Filosofica Poema 92

You mulish men, Philosophical Satire Poem 92
Translated by David Frye

Hombres necios que acusáis

a la mujer sin razón,

sin ver que sois la ocasión

de lo mismo que culpáis:

si con ansia sin igual

solicitáis su desdén,

¿por qué queréis que obren bien

si las incitáis al mal?

Combatís su resistencia

y luego, con gravedad,

decís que fue livianidad

lo que hizo la diligencia.

Parecer quiere el denuedo

de vuestro parecer loco,

al niño que pone el coco

y luego le tiene miedo.

Queréis, con presunción necia,

hallar a la que buscáis,

para pretendida, Thais,

y en la posesión, Lucrecia.

¿Que humor puede ser más raro

que el que, falto de consejo,

él mismo empaña el espejo,

y siente que no esté claro?

Con el favor y el desdén

tenéis condición igual,

quejándoos, si os tratan mal,

burlándoos, si os quieren bien.

Opinión, ninguna gana;

pues la que más se recata,

si no os admite, es ingrata,

y si os admite, es liviana.

Siempre tan necios andáis

que, con desigual nivel,

a una culpáis por cruel

y a otra por fácil culpáis.

¿Pues cómo ha de estar templada

la que vuestro amor pretende,

si la que es ingrata, ofende,

y la que es fácil, enfada?

Mas, entre el enfado y pena

que vuestro gusto refiere,

bien haya la que no os quiere

y quejaos en hora buena.

Dan vuestras amantes penas

a sus libertades alas,

y después de hacerlas malas

las queréis hallar muy buenas.

¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido

en una pasión errada:

la que cae de rogada,

o el que ruega de caído?

¿O cuál es más de culpar,

aunque cualquiera mal haga:

la que peca por la paga,

o el que paga por pecar?

Pues ¿para qué os espantáis

de la culpa que tenéis?

Queredlas cual las hacéis

o hacedlas cual las buscáis.

Dejad de solicitar,

y después, con más razón,

acusaréis la afición

de la que os fuere a rogar.

Bien con muchas armas fundo

que lidia vuestra arrogancia,

pues en promesa e instancia

juntáis diablo, carne y mundo.

You mulish men, accusing

woman without reason,

not seeing you occasion

the very wrong you blame:

since you, with craving unsurpassed,

have sought for their disdain,

why do you hope for their good works

when you urge them on to ill?

You assail all their resistance,

then, speaking seriously,

you say it was frivolity,

forgetting all your diligence.

What most resembles the bravery

of your mad opinion

is the boy who summons the bogeyman

and then cowers in fear of him.

You hope, with mulish presumption,

to find the one you seek:

for the one you court, a Thaïs;

but possessing her, Lucrecia.

Whose humor could be odd

than he who, lacking judgment,

himself fogs up the mirror,

then laments that it's not clear?

Of their favor and their disdain

you hold the same condition:

complaining if they treat you ill;

mocking them, if they love you well.

A fair opinion no woman can win,

no matter how discreet she is;

if she won't admit you, she is mean,

and if she does, she's frivolous.

You're always so stubbornly mulish

that, using your unbalanced scale,

you blame one woman for being cruel,

the other one, for being easy.

For how can she be temperate

when you are wooing after her,

if her being mean offends you

and her being easy maddens?

Yet between the anger and the grief

that your taste recounts,

blessed the woman who doesn't love you,

and go complain for all you're worth.

Your lover's grief gives

wings to their liberties,

yet after making them so bad

you hope to find them very good.

Whose blame should be the greater

in an ill-starred passion:

she who, begged-for, falls,

or he who, fallen, begs her?

Or who deserves more blame,

though both of them do ill:

she who sins for pay,

or he who pays for sin?

So why are you so afraid

of the blame that is your own?

Love them just as you have made them,

or make them as you seek to find.

Just stop your soliciting

and then, with all the more reason,

you may denounce the infatuation

of the woman who comes to beg for you.

With all these arms, then, I have proved

that what you wield is arrogance,

for in your promises and your demands

you join up devil, flesh, and world.

[35]

In addition to the two comedies outlined here ( House of Desires [ Los empeños de una casa]) and Love is but a Labyrinth ([Amor es mas laberinto]), Sor Juana is attributed as the author of a possible ending to the comedy by Agustin de Salazar: The Second Celestina (La Segunda Celestina). In the 1990s, Guillermo Schmidhuber found a release of the comedy that contained a different ending than the otherwise known ending. He proposed that those one thousand words were written by Sor Juana. Some literary critics, such as Octavio Paz, Georgina Sabat-Rivers, and Luis Leal) have accepted Sor Juana as the co-author, but others, such as Antonio Alatorre and José Pascual Buxó, have refuted it.

Scholars have debated the meaning of Juana's comedies. Julie Greer Johnson describes how Juana protested against the rigorously defined relationship between genders through her full-length comedies and humor. She argues that Juana recognized the negative view of women in comedy which was designed to uphold male superiority at the expense of women. By recognizing the power of laughter, Juana appropriated the purpose of humor, and used it as a socially acceptable medium with which to question notions of men and women.

Pawns of a House

The work was first performed on October 4, 1683, during the celebration of the Viceroy Count of Paredes' first son's birth. Some critics maintain that it could have been set up for the Archbishop Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas ' entrance to the capital, but this theory is not considered reliable.

The story revolves around two couples who are in love but, by chance of fate, cannot yet be together. This comedy of errors is considered one of the most prominent works of late baroque Spanish-American literature. One of its most peculiar characteristics is that the driving force in the story is a woman with a strong, decided personality who expresses her desires to a nun. The protagonist of the story, Dona Leonor, fits the archetype perfectly.

It is often considered the peak of Sor Juana's work and even the peak of all New-Hispanic literature. Pawns of a House is considered a rare work in colonial Spanish-American theater due to the management of intrigue, representation of the complicated system of marital relationships, and the changes in urban life.

Love is but a Labyrinth

The work premiered on February 11, 1689, during the celebration of the inauguration of the viceroyalty Gaspar de la Cerda y Mendoza. However, in his Essay on Psychology, Ezequiel A. Chavez mentions Fernandez del Castillo as a coauthor of this comedy.

The plot takes on the well-known theme in Greek mythology of Theseus: a hero from Crete Island. He fights against the Minotaur and awakens the love of Ariadne and Phaedra. Sor Juana conceived Theseus as the archetype of the baroque hero, a model also used by her fellow countryman Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. Theseus's triumph over the Minotaur does not make Theseus proud, but instead allows him to be humble.

Monument of Sor Juana in Chapultepec.

Besides poetry and philosophy, Sor Juana was interested in science, mathematics and music. The latter represents an important aspect, not only because musicality was an intrinsic part of the poetry of the time but also for the fact that she devoted a significant portion of her studies to the theory of instrumental tuning that, especially in the Baroque period, had reached a point of critical importance. So involved was Sor Juana in the study of music, that she wrote a treatise called El Caracol (which is lost now) that sought to simplify musical notation and solve the problems that Pythagorean tuning suffered.

In the writings of Juana Inés, it is possible to detect the importance of sound. We can observe this in two ways. First of all, the analysis of music and the study of musical temperament appears in several of her poems. For instance, in the following poem, Sor Juana delves into the natural notes and the accidentals of musical notation:

Propiedad es de natura
que entre Dios y el hombre media,
y del cielo el be cuadrado
junto al be bemol de la tierra.
(Villancico 220)

Professor Sarah Finley argues that the visual is related with patriarchal themes, while the sonorous offers an alternative to the feminine space in the work of Sor Juana. As an example of this, Finley points out that Narciso falls in love with a voice, and not with a reflection.

One musical work attributed to Sor Juana survives from the archive of Guatemala Cathedral. This is a 4-part villancico, Madre, la de los primores.

Other works include Hombres Necios (Foolish Men), and The Divine Narcissus.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote a letter to her Confessor, Antonio Núñez de Miranda, titled Autodefensa Espiritual (Spiritual Self-Defense) in 1690, ten years before she severs ties after sending the Respuesta a Sor Filotea. However, unlike the Respuesta, the Autodefensa has much more biting and frank language used. In the Autodefensa, Sor Juana defends her intellectual pursuits and criticizes the restrictions placed on women's education and opportunities to pursue knowledge. She argues that women have the same rational souls as men and should be able to study and engage in intellectual pursuits. In the Autodefensa letter, Sor Juana uses this more forceful and confrontational language to reprimand and dismiss her Confessor. This has led scholars to suggest that the Autodefensa was a rehearsal for the arguments she would later make in the Respuesta. In both letters, Sor Juana defends her right to pursue knowledge and critiques the restrictions placed on women's intellectual development. Many of these themes were feminist in nature with one of the most notable being the right of women to be able to study intellectual pursuits. This theme is prevalent in the lines,

"But who has prohibited women private and individual studies? Do they not have a rational soul like men? Why should it then not enjoy within them the privilege of enlightenment in an education? Is it not as capable of earning God's glory and grace as yours? Why should it not be capable of such news and science, a trifle? What divine revelation, what determination of the Church, what dictate of reason made for us such a severe law?" (translated from Tapia Mendez 1993).

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's Autodefensa Espiritual and Respuesta a Sor Filotea are considered some of the most significant feminist writings of the 17th century. Her advocacy for women's intellectual rights was particularly groundbreaking, as women in her time were often restricted from pursuing academic and intellectual pursuits. Sor Juana's writings challenged patriarchal structures and called for greater gender equality and opportunities for women to pursue their passions. Sor Juana's writings were not only feminist but also expressed her thoughts on politics and religion. She was known for her strong defense of her beliefs and refusal to be silenced, which resulted in her being criticized by the Church and other powerful figures of her time. Despite facing backlash and opposition, Sor Juana continued to write and publish her works. Her work continues to inspire feminists and scholars today, and she is celebrated as a feminist icon and a leading voice in Latin American literature and intellectual thought. Sor Juana's writing also had a significant impact on the development of Mexican literature and culture, and she is considered a national treasure in Mexico.

Octavio Paz is credited with re-establishing the importance of the historic Sor Juana in modern times, and other scholars have been instrumental in translating Sor Juana's work to other languages. The only translations of Carta Atenagorica are found in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Writings by Pamela Kirk Rappaport and The Tenth Muse: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Fanchon Royer. Translations of Sor Juana's La Respuesta are credited to Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell, Edith Grossman, Margaret Seyers Peden, and Alan S. Trubeblood. These translations are respectively found in The Answer/La Respuesta, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: Selected Works, A Woman of Genius: The Intellectual Biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Poems, Protest, and a Dream, and A Sor Juana Anthology.

Since Sor Juana's works were rediscovered after her death, scholarly interpretations and translations are both abundant and contrasting.

Octavio Paz was a Mexican Nobel Prize laureate and scholar. In his 1982 book, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe (translated to English by Margaret Sayers Peden as Sor Juana: Or, The Traps of Faith), Paz examines and contemplates Sor Juana's poetry and life in the context of the history of New Spain, particularly focusing on the difficulties women then faced while trying to thrive in academic and artistic fields. Primarily, Paz aims to explain why Sor Juana chose to become a nun. In Juana Ramírez, Octavio Paz and Diane Marting find that Sor Juana's decision to become a nun stemmed from her refusal to marry; joining the convent, according to Paz and Marting, was a way for Juana to obtain authority and freedom without marrying.

In his analyses of Sor Juana's poetry, Octavio Paz traces some of her influences to the Spanish writers of the Golden Age and the Hermetic tradition, mainly derived from the works of a noted Jesuit scholar of her era, Athanasius Kircher. Paz interprets Sor Juana's most ambitious and extensive poem, "First Dream" ("Primero Sueño"), as a representation of the desire of knowledge through a number of hermetic symbols, albeit transformed in her own language and skilled image-making abilities. In conclusion, Paz makes the case that Sor Juana's works were the most important body of poetic work produced in the Americas until the arrival of 19th-century figures such as Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.

Tarsicio Herrera Zapién

Tarsicio Herrera Zapién, a classical scholar, has also devoted much of his career to the study of Sor Juana's works. Some of his publications (in Spanish) include Buena fe y humanismo en Sor Juana: diálogos y ensayos: las obras latinas: los sorjuanistas recientes (1984); López Velarde y sor Juana, feministas opuestos: y cuatro ensayos sobre Horacio y Virgilio en México (1984); Poemas mexicanos universales: de Sor Juana a López Velarde (1989) and Tres siglos y cien vidas de Sor Juana (1995).

Scholars such as Scout Frewer argue that because Juana's advocacy for religious and intellectual authority would now be associated with feminism, she was a protofeminist. In the twenty-first century, Latin American philosophers and scholars generally interpret Sor Juana as a feminist before the time of feminism.

For instance, scholars like Rachel O'Donnell argue that Sor Juana occupied a special place in between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable roles in seventeenth century Mexico. By examining Sor Juana intersectionally, they prioritize the context of New Spain, specifically the influence of religion, race, and social norms, in understanding Sor Juana as a female theologian and poet.

According to O'Donnell, in colonial Mexico, education was an undertaking reserved for men, especially activities like writing and reading. Consequently, scholars like Octavio Paz argue, religion became a way for women to avoid marriage. Since Sor Juana was opposed to marriage, Paz argues, entering the convent was a socially acceptable way to be a single woman in seventeenth century Mexico. Entering the convent also meant that Sor Juana could read and write about religion despite the barriers to formal education for women. O'Donnell argues that Sor Juana was called a rare bird because although theology was only an acceptable pursuit for men in the Catholic Church, she actively studied religion. Sor Juana likely perceived wisdom and religion as inseparable, so she probably also believed that to follow God was to pursue wisdom. A third perspective suggests that considering the colonial context of New Spain and Sor Juana's background as a , she represented colonial knowledge in a way that defied colonial religious structures.

Luis Felipe Fabre criticized 'Sorjuanista' scholarship as a whole, arguing that the discourse is binary rather than complex and multilayered.

Luis Felipe Fabre, a Mexican writer and scholar, ridicules other scholars, whom he collectively calls Sorjuanistas, who idolize Sor Juana. In his book, Sor Juana and Other Monsters, Fabre argues that the appropriation and recontextualization immanent in scholars' interpretations of Sor Juana construct Sor Juana as either a heretic or a lesbian. Fabre suggests that such representations constitute Sor Juana as a monstrosity or abnormality rather than as a complex woman. He suggests that rather than locating Sor Juana in a fixed identity, scholarship on Sor Juana should be a fluctuating and multilayered conversation.

Margaret Sayers Peden's 1982 A Woman of Genius: The Intellectual Autobiography of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, was the first English translation of Sor Juana's work. As well, Peden is credited for her 1989 translation of Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith. Unlike other translations, Peden chose to translate the title of Sor Juana's best known work, First Dream, as "First I Dream" instead. Peden's use of first person instills authority in Sor Juana as an author, as a person with knowledge, in a male-dominated society. Peden also published her English translations of Sor Juana's work in an anthology called Poems, Protest, and a Dream. This work includes her response to authorities censuring her, La Respuesta, and First Dream.

An equally valuable feminist analysis and interpretation of Sor Juana's life and work is found in The Answer/La Respuesta by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz by Electa Arenal, a Sor Juana scholar who is recognized among feminists who changed America, and Amanda Powell, a poet and translator. The original publication, released in 1994 by The Feminist Press, was re-released in an updated second edition in 2009, also by The Feminist Press. The bilingual publication includes poems, an annotated publication of Sor Juana's response to Church officials and her impassioned plea for education of women, analysis and a bibliography. The Answer applies a valuable gender lens to Sor Juana's writings and life. In their feminist analysis, Powell and Arenal translate the viewpoint of Sor Juana's writing as gender-ambiguous. Released in an updated second edition in 2009, also by The Feminist Press, the bilingual publication includes poems, an annotated publication of Sor Juana's response to Church officials and her impassioned plea for education of women, analysis and a bibliography.

Theresa A. Yugar, a feminist theologian scholar in her own right, wrote her Master's and Doctoral theses on Sor Juana. Her book, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Feminist Reconstruction of Biography and Text, discusses the life of Sor Juana through a feminist lens and analysis of her texts, La Respuesta (The Answer) and El Primero Sueño (First Dream).

Yugar aims to understand why individuals in Mexico in the twenty-first century have more knowledge of Frida Kahlo than Sor Juana. She celebrates poet Octavio Paz for crossing national borders with his internationally acclaimed work on Sor Juana: Or, The Traps of Faith. However, while Paz establishes Sor Juana's historical relevance, Yugar expands on his work to establish Sor Juana's importance in the twenty-first century.

Yugar argues that Sor Juana is the first female bibliophile in the New World. She also argues that Sor Juana's historic focus on gender and class equality in education (the public sphere) and the household (the private sphere), in addition to her advocacy for language rights, and the connection between indigenous religious traditions and ecological protection were paramount in the seventeenth century. Today's similar advocacy ignores her primal position in that work which is currently exclusively associated with ecofeminism and feminist theology.

The first part of Sor Juana's complete works, Madrid, 1689.

The Sor Juana Inés Services for Abused Women was established in 1993 to pay Sor Juana's dedication to helping women survivors of domestic violence forward. Renamed the Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse (CORA), the organization offers community, legal, and family support services in Spanish to Latin American women and children who have faced or are facing domestic violence.

The San Jerónimo Convent, where Juana lived the last 27 years of her life and where she wrote most of her work is today the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana in the historic center of Mexico City. The Mexican government founded in the university in 1979.

While Sor Juana was a famous and controversial figure in the seventeenth century, she is also an important figure in modern times.

During renovations at the cloister in the 1970s, bones believed to be those of Sor Juana were discovered. A medallion similar to the one depicted in portraits of Juana was also found. Margarita López Portillo, the sister of President José López Portillo (1976-1982), kept the medallion. During the tercentennial of Sor Juana's death in 1995, a member of the Mexican congress called on Margarita López Portillo to return the medallion, which she said she had taken for safekeeping. She returned it to Congress on November 14, 1995, with the event and description of the controversy reported in The New York Times a month later. Whether or not the medallion belonged to Juana, the incident sparked discussions about Juana and abuse of official power in Mexico.

Amanda Powell locates Sor Juana as a contributor to the Querelles des Femmes, a three-century long literary debate about women. Central to this early feminist debate were ideas about gender and sex, and, consequently, misogyny.

Powell argues that the formal and informal networks and pro-feminist ideas of the Querelles des Femmes were important influences on Sor Juana's work, La Respuesta. For women, Powell argues, engaging in conversation with other women was as significant as communicating through writing. However, while Teresa of Ávila appears in Sor Juana's La Respuesta, Sor Juana makes no mention of the person who launched the debate, Christine de Pizan. Rather than focusing on Sor Juana's engagement with other literary works, Powell prioritizes Sor Juana's position of authority in her own literary discourse. This authoritative stance not only demonstrates a direct counter to misogyny, but was also typically reserved for men. As well, Sor Juana's argument that ideas about women in religious hierarchies are culturally constructed, not divine, echoes ideas about the construction of gender and sex.

Yugar connects Sor Juana to feminist advocacy movements in the twenty-first century, such as religious feminism, ecofeminism, and the feminist movement in general.

Although the current religious feminist movement grew out of the Liberation Theology movement of the 1970s, Yugar uses Sor Juana's criticism of religious law that permits only men to occupy leadership positions within the Church as early evidence of her religious feminism. Based on Sor Juana's critique of the oppressive and patriarchal structures of the Church of her day, Yugar argues that Sor Juana predated current movements, like Latina Feminist Theology, that privilege Latina women's views on religion. She also cites modern movements such as the Roman Catholic Women Priest Movement, the Women's Ordination Conference, and the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, all of which also speak out against the patriarchal limitations on women in religious institutions.

Yugar emphasizes that Sor Juana interpreted the Bible as expressing concern with people of all backgrounds as well as with the earth. Most significantly, Yugar argues, Sor Juana expressed concern about the consequences of capitalistic Spanish domination over the earth. These ideas, Yugar points out, are commonly associated with modern feminist movements concerned with decolonization and the protection of the planet.

Alicia Gaspar de Alba connects Sor Juana to the modern lesbian movement and Chicana movement. She links Sor Juana to criticizing the concepts of compulsory heterosexuality and advocating the idea of a lesbian continuum, both of which are credited to well-known feminist writer and advocate Adrienne Rich. As well, Gaspar de Alba locates Sor Juana in the Chicana movement, which has not been accepting of "Indigenous lesbians".

As a woman in religion, Sor Juana has become associated with the Virgin of Guadalupe, a religious symbol of Mexican identity, but was also connected to Aztec goddesses. For example, parts of Sor Juana's Villancico 224 are written in Nahuatl, while others are written in Spanish. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the subject of the Villancico, but depending on the language, the poem refers to both the Virgin of Guadalupe and Cihuacoatl, an indigenous goddess. It is ambiguous whether Sor Juana prioritizes the Mexican or indigenous religious figure, or whether her focus is on harmonizing the two.

Sor Juana's connection to indigenous religious figures is also prominent in her Loa to Divine Narcissus, (Spanish " El Divino Narciso") (see Jauregui 2003, 2009). The play centers on the interaction between two Indigenous people, named Occident and America, and two Spanish people, named Religion and Zeal. The characters exchange their religious perspectives, and conclude that there are more similarities between their religious traditions than there are differences. The loa references Aztec rituals and gods, including Huitzilopochtli, who symbolized the land of Mexico.

Scholars like Nicole Gomez argue that Sor Juana's fusion of Spanish and Aztec religious traditions in her Loa to Divine Narcissus aims to raise the status of indigenous religious traditions to that of Catholicism in New Spain. Gomez argues that Sor Juana also emphasizes the violence with which Spanish religious traditions dominated indigenous ones. Ultimately, Gomez argues that Sor Juana's use of both colonial and indigenous languages, symbols, and religious traditions not only gives voice to indigenous peoples, who were marginalized, but also affirms her own indigenous identity.

Through their scholarly interpretations of Sor Juana's work, Octavio Paz and Alicia Gaspar de Alba have also incorporated Sor Juana into discourses about Mexican identity. Paz's accredited scholarship on Sor Juana elevated her to a national symbol as a Mexican woman, writer, and religious authority. On the contrary, Gaspar de Alba emphasized Sor Juana's indigenous identity by inserting her into Chicana discourses.

Paul Allatson emphasizes that women like Sor Juana and Frida Kahlo masculinized their appearances to symbolically complicate the space marked for women in society. Sor Juana's decision to cut her hair as punishment for mistakes she made during learning signified her own autonomy, but was also a way to engage in the masculinity expected of male-dominated spaces, like universities. According to Paul Allatson, nuns were also required to cut their hair after entering the convent. These ideas, Allatson suggests, are echoed in Frida Kahlo's 1940 self-portrait titled Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, or Autorretrato con cabellos corto.

As well, the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana honored both Frida Kahlo and Sor Juana on October 31, 2018, with a symbolic altar. The altar, called Las Dos Juanas, was specially made for the Day of the Dead.

In present times, Sor Juana is still an important figure in Mexico.

In 1995, Sor Juana's name was inscribed in gold on the wall of honor in the Mexican Congress in April 1995. In addition, Sor Juana is pictured on the obverse of the 200 pesos bill issued by the Banco de Mexico, and the 1000 pesos coin minted by Mexico between 1988 and 1992. The town where Sor Juana grew up, San Miguel Nepantla in the municipality of Tepetlixpa, State of Mexico, was renamed in her honor as Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

In 2022, the Episcopal Church of the United States gave final approval and added her feast to the liturgical calendar. Her feast day is April 18.

Libro de obras poéticas de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1693) in the Museo Internacional del Barroco

1676 - Villancicos, que se cantaron en la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de Mexico. En los maitines de la Purissima Concepcion de Nuestra Señora

1689 - Inundacion castalida. Madrid: Juan Garcia Infanson

1693 - Segundo tomo de las obras de soror Juana Inés de la Cruz, monja professa en el monasterio del Señor San Geronimo de la ciudad de Mexico. Barcelona: Joseph Llopis

1701 - Fama, y obras posthumas, tomo tercero, del fenix de México, y dezima musa, poetisa de la America, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, religiosa professa en el Convento de San Geronimo, de la imperial ciudad de Mexico. Barcelona: Rafael Figuerò

1709 - Poemas de la unica poetisa americana, musa dezima, soror Juana Ines de la Cruz, religiosa professa en el monasterio de San Germonimo de la imperial ciudad de Mexico. Valencia: Antonio Bordazar

Juana Ines de la Cruz in art by Mexican artist Mauricio García Vega.

American composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars used two of Sor Juana's poems, Pues mi Dios ha nacido a penar and Pues está tiritando in their libretto for the Nativity oratorio-opera El Niño (2000).

Composer Allison Sniffin's original composition, Óyeme con los ojos - (Hear Me with Your Eyes: Sor Juana on the Nature of Love), based on text and poetry by Sor Juana, was commissioned by Melodia Women's Choir, which premiered the work at the Kaufman Center in New York City.[80]

Composer Daniel Crozier and librettist Peter M. Krask wrote With Blood, With Ink, an opera based around her life, while both were students at Baltimore's Peabody Institute in 1993. The work won first prize in the National Operatic and Dramatic Association's Chamber Opera Competition. In 2000, excerpts were included in the New York City Opera's Showcasing American Composers Series. The work in its entirety was premiered by the Fort Worth Opera on April 20, 2014, and recorded by Albany Records.

Puerto Rican singer iLe recites part of one of Sor Juana's sonnets in her song "Rescatarme".

In 2013, the Brazilian composer Jorge Antunes composed an electroacoustic musical work entitled CARTA ATHENAGÓRICA, in the studio of CMMAS (Mexican Center for Music and Sound Arts) in the city of Morelia, with the support of Ibermúsicas. The composition, which honors Sor Juana is called "Figurative Music", in which the musical structure and musical objects are based on rhetoric with figures of speech. In the work Antunes uses the chiasmus, also called retruécano, from poems of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Film, television and video

ALATORRE, Antonio, Sor Juana a través de los siglos. México: El Colegio de México, 2007.

BEAUCHOT, Mauricio, Sor Juana, una filosofía barroca, Toluca: UAM, 2001.

BUXÓ, José Pascual, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Lectura barroca de la poesía, México, Renacimiento, 2006.

GAOS, José. "El sueño de un sueño". Historia Mexicana, 10, 1960.

HAHN, Miriam, "As If There Were No Damages: Representing Native American Spirituality in the Dramas of Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz." Ecumenia. April 2015, vol. 8, no. 1, Pennsylvania State University Press, pp. 7-20, 87

JAUREGUI, Carlos A. "Cannibalism, the Eucharist, and Criollo Subjects." In Creole Subjects in the Colonial Americas: Empires, Texts, Identities. Ralph Bauer & Jose A. Mazzotti (eds.). Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, Williamsburg, VA, U. of North Carolina Press, 2009. 61-100.

JAUREGUI, Carlos A. "El plato más sabroso': eucaristía, plagio diabólico, y la traducción criolla del caníbal." Colonial Latin American Review 12:2 (2003): 199-231.

Kretsch, Donna Raske. "Sisters Across the Atlantic: Aphra Behn and Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz." Women's Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, Taylor & Francis Group, 1992, pp. 361-379, doi:10.1080/00497878.1992.9978949

OLIVARES ZORRILLA, Rocío, "The Eye of Imagination: Emblems in the Baroque Poem 'The Dream,' by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz", in Emblematica. An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies, AMC Press, Inc., New York, vol. 18, 2010: 111-161.

PERELMUTER, Rosa, Los límites de la femineidad en sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Madrid, Iberoamericana, 2004.

PAZ, Octavio. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1982.

PFLAND, Ludwig, Die zehnte Muse von Mexiko Juana Inés de la Cruz. Ihr Leben, ihre Dichtung, ihre Psyche. München: Rinn, 1946.

SABAT DE RIVERS, Georgina, El "Sueño" de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: tradiciones literarias y originalidad, Londres: Támesis, 1977.

SORIANO, Alejandro, La hora más bella de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, México, CONACULTA, Instituto Queretano de la Cultura y las Artes, 2010.

Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Carl W Cobb. The Sonnets of Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz in English Verse. E. Mellen Press, 2001.

Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Alberto G Salceda. Obras Completas De Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz. 1st edn, Fondo De Cultura Economica, 1957.

Juana Inés de la Cruz, and Margaret Sayers Peden. A Woman of Genius : The Intellectual Autobiography of Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz. 2nd edn, Lime Rock Press, 1987.

Schmidhuber de la Mora, Guillermo, et al. The Three Secular Plays of Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz : A Critical Study. University Press of Kentucky, 2000. INSERT-MISSING-DATABASE-NAME, INSERT-MISSING-URL. Accessed 14 May 2020.

Thurman, Judith, et al. I Became Alone : Five Women Poets, Sappho, Louise Labé, Ann Bradstreet, Juana Ines De La Cruz, Emily Dickinson. 1st edn, Atheneum, 1975.

2.14.6, Notes on Two Spanish American Poets: Gabriela Mistral and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1947 and undated, Box: 14, Folder: 6.0; Reel: 81, Frame: 148. Katherine Anne Porter papers, 0041-LIT. Special Collections and University Archives. Accessed May 14, 2020.

Juana de la Cruz. Mother Juana De La Cruz, 1481-1534 : Visionary Sermons. Edited by Jessica A Boon, Iter Academic Press, 2016.

Juana Inés de la Cruz . A Sor Juana Anthology. Translated by Alan S Trueblood, Harvard University Press, 1988.

The Politics and Poetics of Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz. Ashgate, 2012. INSERT-MISSING-DATABASE-NAME, INSERT-MISSING-URL. Accessed 14 May 2020.

Kirk Rappaport, Pamela. Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism. Continuum, 1998.

Merrim, Stephanie. Early Modern Women's Writing and Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz. 1st edn, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999.

Juana Inés de la Cruz, Joan Larkin, Jaime Manrique. Sor Juana's Love Poems. University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. Project Muse. Accessed 14 May 2020.

Allen, Heather. "New Research on Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz". Letras Femininas (Vol. 42, Issue 2), Association of Hispanic Feminine Literature, 2016.

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Juana de Asuaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1648 - 17 April 1695), was a colonial Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, as well as a Hieronymite nun, nicknamed " The Tenth Muse" and " The Phoenix of America" by her contemporary critics.

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Poverty is one of the greatest challenges of our time, disproportionally affecting women and girls; their health, employment and safety. Today, 836 million people still live in extreme poverty.

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Anna Pavlovna Filosofova ( Russian: Анна Павловна Философова; August 5, 1837 - March 17, 1912) was a Russian philanthropist and feminist. She was an important charity organiser, and, alongside Maria Trubnikova (1835-1897) and Nadezhda Stasova (1835-1895), was one of the founders and leaders of the first organised Russian women's movement.

Filosofova was born into a wealthy noble family in Saint Petersburg. Her father Pavel Diaghilev was an official with the Ministry of Finance who retired in 1850 and started a distillery business. In 1855 he became fanatically religious, and the responsibility of the family business was transferred to Anna's mother. Anna was the youngest of nine children. She received her education at home, following the custom of noble families of the time. In 1855 she married Vladimir Dmitryevich Filosofov, a powerful official in the Ministry of War and Defence. Anna had six children, including the writer Dmitry Filosofov.

Anna's husband came from a serf-owning family, and after their marriage she made frequent visits to the Filosofov estate in Bezhanitsy. Filosofov's father was known as a tyrannical figure, and the lifestyle at the estate had a powerful effect on Anna. It was here that she first began to reflect on social problems, and especially the plight of poor peasants and serfs. Her first philanthropic activities concerned providing food and medicine to the poor. It was around this time that she met Maria Trubnikova, a woman interested in social change who gave Anna books on women's issues and discussed them with her. Anna said of Maria that she was "an angel, gentle and patient. She developed me, read with me. This was hard, since I didn't know anything."

In 1860, Anna, Maria, and their friend Nadezhda Stasova founded the "Society for Cheap Lodging and Other Aid to the Residents of Saint Petersburg", based on a new philanthropic method. Filosofova believed that instead of giving cash benefits to the poor, it was better to train and educate them so that they could earn a living on their own. They provided low cost housing for poor women and sewing work from local businesses. The society acquired its own building, and a large contract for sewing work from the military. Anna and her friends founded several societies including the "Society for the organisation of Work for Women" and the "Women's Publishing Artel".

After the Crimean war, Russia instituted great reforms in the education system and, while opening universities for non noble males, also founded 131 schools for girls, of which 37 offered higher education. Filosofova was the founder of one of the literary discussion circles which were fashionable at the time, together with Trubnikova and Stasova: Trubnikova, the daughter of one of the participants of the Decembrist revolt, was a friend of Josephine Butler and acquainted with Western feminist literature.

The most ambitious undertaking of Anna and her associates was the promotion of education for women. In 1867 they sent a petition with four hundred signatures to Tsar Alexander II asking permission to open the first higher education courses for women at Saint Petersburg State University. There was strong resistance from conservatives to the admission of women to the University, and they weren't supported by the Education Minister Dmitry Tolstoy. Tolstoy did allow women to begin attending lectures by University professors, often for free. In 1871 these informal courses were given the name "Vladimirsky", after the name of the college where they were held. The reaction to the courses by upper-class society was decidedly negative. Many female students went abroad in order to complete their education. The courses were closed in 1875. In 1876 Anna was able to get official permission to open the first Russian women's university, known as the Bestuzhev Courses after their nominal founder Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin.

Anna was known for her kindness and generosity, and she was often approached for help by the families of convicted and exiled revolutionaries. Her sympathies for these revolutionaries were unpopular with Russian officials. In 1879 she was exiled abroad for giving aid to revolutionary organisations, and only allowed to return in 1881. After the assassination of the Tsar in 1881, Anna, now known for her revolutionary sympathies, couldn't find supporters for further social projects. Her husband's official position was also weakened because of her revolutionary connections, and the family was forced to live more modestly.

Anna returned to public life in the late 1880s and early 1890s when she began providing assistance for starving people in the Volga Region. In 1892 she joined the "Saint Petersburg Committee for the Promotion of Literacy". In 1895 she founded and chaired the "Charity Association of Russian Women", a feminist organisation that was officially denominated a charity organisation because all forms of political activity were banned in Russia. The same year, a women's university of medicine was founded in Russia, and in 1904 women's university courses were again allowed outside of the capital. In connection with this, Filosofova was recognized by the Tsar for her work within the "Society for the Finance of Education courses for Women". In 1905, the universities of Russia were opened to women and the women's university courses were no longer necessary. The same year, men were granted suffrage and political activity was permitted, after which the women's group presented their first demand for women suffrage.

Anna was elected chairman of the International Council of Women in 1899. She participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905, joining the Constitutional Democratic Party and eventually acting as chairman of the first Russian women's congress in 1908. Anna's aims of unifying Russian women were unsuccessful, mostly due to the number of factions within the movement. After the congress, Anna and some of her associates received deprecating letters from the ultra-conservative Duma deputy Vladimir Purishkevich. Anna made the letter public and took Purishkevich to court, where he was sentenced to one month in jail.

In 1908 Anna joined the Russian Theosophical Society, which she had helped to set up. In 1911 Russia celebrated the fiftieth jubilee of Anna's public activities, representing the progress and achievements of the women's movement in Russia. The jubilee was attended by more than one hundred women's organisations who presented addresses, along with several foreign groups. She was also honored by deputies of the Duma at the Mariinsky Palace. She died in Saint Petersburg, and her funeral was attended by thousands of people.

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Anna Pavlovna Filosofova ( Russian: Анна Павловна Философова; August 5, 1837 - March 17, 1912) was a Russian philanthropist and feminist. She was an important charity organiser, and, alongside Maria Trubnikova (1835-1897) and Nadezhda Stasova (1835-1895), was one of the founders and leaders of the first organised Russian women's movement.

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Women’s representation is still lagging in politics. In 2015, only 22 per cent of all national parliamentarians were female, a slow increase from 11.3 per cent in 1995.

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Katherine Wilson "Kate" Sheppard (née Malcolm, 10 March 1847 - 13 July 1934) was the most prominent member of the New Zealand's women's suffrage movement and was the country's most famous suffragette. She also appears on the New Zealand ten-dollar note.

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1909 - International Women's Day (US) 1911(France)

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1909 - International Women's Day (US) 1911(France)

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International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality

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The Surprising History of International Women’s Day | HISTORY

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Though International Women’s Day may be more widely celebrated abroad than in the United States, its roots are planted firmly in American soil.

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A pioneering Japanese editor, writer and political activist, Raichō Hiratsuka co-founded her country’s first all-women run literary journal Seitō in 1911 through which she challenged women’s traditional roles at home. In the magazine’s inaugural issue, she emboldens women to “reveal the genius hidden within us!”

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Hiratsuka Raichō (平塚 らいちょう, transliterated らいてう according to the historical kana orthography, February 10, 1886 - May 24, 1971) was a writer, journalist, political activist, anarchist and pioneering Japanese feminist.

Born Hiratsuka Haru (平塚 明) in Tokyo in 1886, the second daughter of a high ranking civil servant, and educated at Japan Women's University (日本女子大学) in 1903, Hiratsuka came to be influenced by contemporary currents of European philosophy, as well as Zen Buddhism, of which she would become a devoted practitioner. Of particular influence to her was turn-of-the-century Swedish feminist writer Ellen Key, some of whose works she translated into Japanese, and the individualistic heroine of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879). In 1908 she attempted a double-suicide with Morita Sōhei, her teacher - a married writer - and a disciple of novelist Natsume Soseki, in the mountains of Nasushiobara, Tochigi. The pair were found alive on the mountain, but the attempted suicide by such a highly educated pair aroused widespread public criticism.

Upon graduation from university, Hiratsuka entered the Narumi Women's English School where, in 1911, she founded Japan's first all-women literary magazine, Seitō (青鞜, literally Bluestocking). She began the first issue with the words, "In the beginning, woman was the sun" (「元始、女性は太陽であった」) - a reference to the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, and to the spiritual independence which women had lost. Adopting the pen name "Raichō" ("Thunderbird"), she began to call for a women's spiritual revolution, and within its first few years the journal's focus shifted from literature to women's issues, including candid discussion of female sexuality, chastity and abortion. Contributors included renowned poet and women's rights proponent Yosano Akiko, among others.

Exaggerated stories of their love affairs and nonconformism, spread by Japan's mainstream press, turned public opinion against the magazine and prompted Raichō to publish several fierce defenses of her ideals. Her April 1913 essay "To the Women of the World" (「世の婦人たちに」) rejected the conventional role of women as ryōsai kenbo (良妻賢母, Good wife and wise mother): "I wonder how many women have, for the sake of financial security in their lives, entered into loveless marriages to become one man's lifelong servant and prostitute." This nonconformism pitted Seitō not only against the society but the state, contributing to the censorship of women's magazines that "disturbed public order" or introduced "Western ideas about women" incompatible with Japan.

The journal folded in 1915, but not before establishing its founder as a leading light in Japan's women's movement. Meanwhile, in 1914, Hiratsuka began living openly with her younger lover, artist Okumura Hiroshi, with whom she had two children out of wedlock and eventually married in 1941.

In 1920, following an investigation into female workers' conditions in textile factories in Nagoya which further galvanized her political resolve, Hiratsuka founded the New Women's Association (新婦人協会, Shin-fujin kyokai) together with fellow women's rights activist Ichikawa Fusae. It was largely through this group's efforts that the Article 5 of the Police Security Regulations-which, enacted in 1900, had barred women from joining political organizations and holding or attending political meetings-was overturned in 1922. Women's suffrage, however, remained elusive in Japan. A further and more controversial campaign attempted to ban men with venereal disease from marrying. This unsuccessful campaign remains a point of controversy surrounding Hiratsuka's career in that it saw her aligned herself with the eugenics movement, asserting that the spread of V.D. was having a detrimental effect on the Japanese "race."

The next couple of decades saw Hiratsuka withdraw somewhat from the public eye, saddled with debts and her lover beset with health problems, although she would continue to write and lecture. In the postwar years, however, she emerged again as a public figure through the peace movement. In 1950, the day after the outbreak of the Korean War, she traveled to the United States together with writer and activist Nogami Yaeko and three other members of the Japan Women's Movement (婦人運動家) in order to present US Secretary of State Dean Acheson with a request that a system be created in which Japan could remain neutral and pacifist. Hiratsuka continued to champion women's rights in the postwar era, founding the New Japan Women's Association (新日本婦人の会) in 1963 together with Nogami and noted artist Iwasaki Chihiro, and continuing to write and lecture up until her death in 1971.

While her career as a political activist covered many decades, Hiratsuka is primarily remembered for her stewardship of the Seitō group. As a leading light of the women's movement in early twentieth century Japan, she was a highly influential figure whose devotees ranged from pioneering Korean feminist author Na Hye-sok (나혜석; 羅蕙錫) who was a student in Tokyo during Seitō's heyday to anarchist and social critic Itō Noe whose membership in the Seitō organization generated some controversy. Her postwar organization, the New Japan Women's Organization, remains active to this day.[citation needed ]

Original works

『円窓より』 (Marumado yori, The View from the Round Window)

『元始、女性は太陽であった』 (Genshi, josei wa taiyō de atta, In The Beginning Woman Was The Sun)

『私の歩いた道』 (Watakushi no aruita michi, The Road I Walked)

Translations

Ellen Karolina Key, The Renaissance of Motherhood (『母性の復興』, Bosei no fukkō)

Ellen Karolina Key, Love and Marriage (『愛と結婚』, Ai to kekkon)

Teruko Craig, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun - The Autobiography of a Japanese Feminist(『元始、女性は太陽であった』, Genshi, josei wa taiyō de atta)

父が子に送る一億人の昭和史：人物現代史 (One Hundred Million People's Showa History from Father to Child - Modern Biographical Histories), Mainichi Shimbun Press, 1977.

Sumiko Otsubo, Engendering Eugenics: Women's Pursuit of Anti-V.D. Marriage Restriction Law in Taisho Japan, Ohio State University Press.

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Hiratsuka Raichō (平塚 らいちょう, transliterated らいてう according to the historical kana orthography, February 10, 1886 - May 24, 1971) was a writer, journalist, political activist, anarchist and pioneering Japanese feminist.

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First African-American woman to receive a pilot's license.

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Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 - April 30, 1926) was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license.

Born to a family of sharecroppers in Texas, Coleman worked in the cotton fields at a young age while also studying in a small segregated school. She attended one term of college at Langston University. Coleman developed an early interest in flying, but African Americans, Native Americans, and women had no flight training opportunities in the United States, so she saved and obtained sponsorships in Chicago to go to France for flight school.

She then became a high-profile pilot in notoriously dangerous air shows in the United States. She was popularly known as Queen Bess and Brave Bessie, and hoped to start a school for African-American fliers. Coleman died in a plane crash in 1926. Her pioneering role was an inspiration to early pilots and to the African-American and Native American communities.

Elizabeth Coleman (sometimes, Bessie) was born on January 26, 1892, in Atlanta, Texas, the tenth of thirteen children of George Coleman, a mixed African American who had Cherokee grandparents, and Susan Coleman, who was African American. Nine of the children survived childhood, which was typical for the time. When Coleman was two years old, her family moved to Waxahachie, Texas, where they lived as sharecroppers. Coleman began attending school in Waxahachie at the age of six. She walked four miles each day to her segregated, one-room school, where she loved to read and established herself as an outstanding math student. She completed her elementary education in that school.

Every year, Coleman's routine of school, chores, and church was interrupted by the cotton harvest. In 1901, George Coleman left his family. He returned to Oklahoma, or Indian Territory, as it was then called, to find better opportunities, but his wife and children did not follow. At the age of 12, Bessie was accepted into the Missionary Baptist Church School on scholarship. When she turned eighteen, she took her savings and enrolled in the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University in Langston, Oklahoma (now called Langston University). She completed one term before her money ran out and she returned home.

In 1915, at the age of 23, Coleman moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived with her brothers. In Chicago, she worked as a manicurist at the White Sox Barber Shop. There she heard stories of flying during wartime from pilots returning home from World War I. She took a second job as a restaurant manager of a chili parlor to save money in hopes of becoming a pilot. American flight schools of the time admitted neither women nor black people, so Robert S. Abbott, founder and publisher of the Chicago Defender newspaper, encouraged her to study abroad. Abbot publicized Coleman's quest in his newspaper and she received financial sponsorship from banker Jesse Binga and the Defender.

Bessie Coleman took a French-language class at the Berlitz Language Schools in Chicago and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920, so she could earn her pilot license. She learned to fly in a Nieuport 564 biplane with "a steering system that consisted of a vertical stick the thickness of a baseball bat in front of the pilot and a rudder bar under the pilot's feet."

On June 15, 1921, Coleman became the first black woman and first Native American to earn an aviation pilot's license and the first black person and first Native American to earn an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Determined to polish her skills, Coleman spent the next two months taking lessons from a French ace pilot near Paris and, in September 1921, she sailed for America. She became a media sensation when she returned to the U.S.

The air is the only place free from prejudices. I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the Race needed to be represented along this most important line, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation...

With the age of commercial flight still a decade or more in the future, Coleman quickly realized that in order to make a living as a civilian aviator she would have to become a " barnstorming" stunt flier, performing dangerous tricks in the air with the then-still-novel technology of airplanes for paying audiences. But, to succeed in this highly competitive arena, she would need advanced lessons and a more extensive repertoire. Returning to Chicago, Coleman could not find anyone willing to teach her, so in February 1922, she sailed again for Europe.

She spent the next two months in France completing an advanced course in aviation. She then left for the Netherlands to meet with Anthony Fokker, one of the world's most distinguished aircraft designers. She also traveled to Germany, where she visited the Fokker Corporation and received additional training from one of the company's chief pilots. She then returned to the United States to launch her career in exhibition flying.

"Queen Bess," as she was known, was a highly popular draw for the next five years. Invited to important events and often interviewed by newspapers, she was admired by both blacks and whites. She primarily flew Curtiss JN-4 Jenny biplanes and other aircraft that had been army surplus aircraft left over from the war. She made her first appearance in an American airshow on September 3, 1922, at an event honoring veterans of the all-black 369th Infantry Regiment of World War I. Held at Curtiss Field on Long Island near New York City, and sponsored by her friend Abbott and the Chicago Defender newspaper, the show billed Coleman as "the world's greatest woman flier" and featured aerial displays by eight other American ace pilots, and a jump by black parachutist Hubert Julian.

Six weeks later she returned to Chicago, performing in an air show, this time to honor World War I's 370th Infantry Regiment. Coleman delivered a stunning demonstration of daredevil maneuvers - including figure eights, loops, and near-ground dips to a large and enthusiastic crowd at the Checkerboard Airdrome - now the grounds of Hines Veterans Administration Medical Center, Hines, Illinois, Loyola Hospital, Maywood, and nearby Cook County Forest Preserve.

The thrill of stunt flying and the admiration of cheering crowds were only part of Coleman's dream. Coleman never lost sight of her childhood vow to one day "amount to something." As a professional aviator, Coleman often would be criticized by the press for her opportunistic nature and the flamboyant style she brought to her exhibition flying. She also quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and daring pilot who would stop at nothing to complete a difficult stunt. In Los Angeles, she broke a leg and three ribs when her plane stalled and crashed on February 22, 1923.

Committed to promoting aviation and combating racism, Coleman spoke to audiences across the country about the pursuit of aviation and goals for African Americans. She absolutely refused to participate in aviation events that prohibited the attendance of African Americans.

In the 1920s, she met the Rev. Hezakiah Hill and his wife Viola on a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida. The community activists invited her to stay with them at the parsonage of Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church on Washington Street in the neighbourhood of Parramore. A local street was renamed "Bessie Coleman" Street in her honour in 2013. The couple, who treated her as a daughter, persuaded her to stay, and Coleman opened a beauty shop in Orlando to earn extra money to buy her own plane.

Through her media contacts, she was offered a role in a feature-length film titled, Shadow and Sunshine, to be financed by the African American Seminole Film Producing Company. She gladly accepted, hoping the publicity would help to advance her career and provide her with some of the money she needed to establish her own flying school. But upon learning that the first scene in the movie required her to appear in tattered clothes, with a walking stick and a pack on her back, she refused to proceed. "Clearly ... [Bessie's] walking off the movie set was a statement of principle. Opportunist though she was about her career, she was never an opportunist about race. She had no intention of perpetuating the derogatory image most whites had of most blacks," wrote Doris Rich.

It's tempting to draw parallels between me and Ms. Coleman . . .[but] I point to Bessie Coleman and say here is a woman, a being, who exemplifies and serves as a model for all humanity, the very definition of strength, dignity, courage, integrity, and beauty.

- Mae Jemison (first African-American
woman astronaut)

Coleman would not live long enough to establish a school for young black aviators, but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African-American men and women. "Because of Bessie Coleman," wrote Lieutenant William J. Powell in Black Wings (1934), dedicated to Coleman, "we have overcome that which was worse than racial barriers. We have overcome the barriers within ourselves and dared to dream." Powell served in a segregated unit during World War I, and tirelessly promoted the cause of black aviation through his book, his journals, and the Bessie Coleman Aero Club, which he founded in 1929.

On April 30, 1926, Coleman was in Jacksonville, Florida. She had recently purchased a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) in Dallas. Her mechanic and publicity agent, 24-year-old William D. Wills, flew the plane from Dallas in preparation for an airshow and had to make three forced landings along the way because the plane had been so poorly maintained. Upon learning this, Coleman's friends and family did not consider the aircraft safe and implored her not to fly it, but she refused. On take-off, Wills was flying the plane with Coleman in the other seat. She was planning a parachute jump for the next day, and wanted to examine the terrain as seen from the cockpit.

About ten minutes into the flight, the plane unexpectedly went into a dive and then a spin at 3,000 feet above the ground. Coleman was thrown from the plane at 2,000 ft (610 m), and was killed instantly when she hit the ground. Wills was unable to regain control of the plane, and it plummeted to the ground. He died upon impact. The plane exploded, bursting into flames. Although the wreckage of the plane was badly burned, it was later discovered that a wrench used to service the engine had jammed the controls. Coleman was 34 years old.

Funeral services were held in Florida before her body was sent back to Chicago. While there was little mention in most media, news of her death was widely carried in the African-American press. Ten thousand mourners attended her ceremonies in Chicago, which were led by activist Ida B. Wells.

Atlanta, Texas, has a Regional History Museum which proudly displays a downscale reproduction version of Bessie Coleman's yellow bi-plane "Queen Bess." The museum display also includes a uniform and other memorabilia regarding the life and times of Bessie Coleman. Outside the regional history museum is a Texas Historical Marker located at 101 N. East Street in Historic Downtown, Atlanta, Texas. The road to the Hall-Miller Municipal Airport in Atlanta, Texas, is named Bessie Coleman Drive in her honor.

A public library in Chicago was named in Coleman's honor, as are roads at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Oakland International Airport in California, Tampa International Airport in Florida, and at Germany's Frankfurt International Airport. A memorial plaque has been placed by the Chicago Cultural Center at the location of her former home, 41st and King Drive in Chicago, and it is a tradition for African-American aviators to drop flowers during flyovers of her grave at Lincoln Cemetery.

A roundabout leading to Nice Airport in the South of France was named after her in March 2016, and there are streets in Poitiers, and the 20th Arrondissement of Paris also named after her.

Bessie Coleman Middle School in Cedar Hill, Texas, is named for her.

Bessie Coleman Boulevard in Waxahachie, Texas, where she lived as a child is named in her honor.

B. Coleman Aviation, a fixed-base operator based at Gary/Chicago International Airport, is named in her honor.

Several Bessie Coleman Scholarship Awards have been established for high school seniors planning careers in aviation.

The U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent stamp honoring Coleman in 1995. The Bessie Coleman Commemorative is the 18th in the U.S. Postal Service Black Heritage series.

Coleman was honored with a toy character in season 5, episode 11a of the children's animated television program Doc McStuffins.

She was placed No. 14 on 's 2013 list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation".

In 2014, Coleman was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

On January 25, 2015, Orlando renamed West Washington Street to recognize the street's most accomplished resident.

On January 26, 2017, the 125th anniversary of her birth, a Google Doodle was posted in her honor.

In December 2019, The New York Times featured Coleman in their Overlooked (obituary feature): "Bessie Coleman, Pioneering African-American Aviatrix"

In 2021, the International Astronomical Union named a mountain (and possible volcano) on Pluto, Coleman Mons, in her honor. It is located on the edge of the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Coleman earning her flying license, in August 2022, American Airlines flew a commemorative flight from "Dallas-Fort Worth to Phoenix. The flight was operated by an all-Black Female crew - from the pilots and Flight Attendants to the Cargo team members and the aviation maintenance technician."

In 2023, Mattel added a Bessie Coleman Barbie doll to its "Inspiring Women" series.

References

1. ^ Bix, Amy Sue (2005). "Bessie Coleman: Race and Gender Realities Behind Aviation Dreams". In Dawson, Virginia Parker; Bowles, Mark D. (eds.). Realizing the Dream of Flight: Biographical Essays in Honor of the Centennial of Flight, 1903-2003. NASA. pp. ix, 5. OCLC 60826554.

2. Ganson, Barbara (2014). Texas Takes Wing: A Century of Flight in the Lone Star State. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-292-75408-9.

3. ^ Marck, Bernard (2009). Women Aviators: From Amelia Earhart to Sally Ride, Making History in Air and Space. Rizzoli International Publications. p. 67. ISBN 9782080301086.

4. ^ Morales, Roni (February 25, 2020). "Coleman, Bessie". The Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State History Association. Archived from the original on December 24, 2011. Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled at the Colored Agricultural and Normal University (now Langston University) in Langston, Oklahoma. Financial difficulties, however, forced her to quit after one semester because she could not afford to attend another one.

5. ^ Rich, Doris (1993). Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 37, 47, 57, 109-111, 145. ISBN 1-56098-265-9.

6. Hudak, Stephen (January 31, 2015). "Orlando renames street in honor of black 'daredevil aviatrix'". Orlando Sentinel.

7. ^ Soergel, Matt (October 28, 2013). "Looking to honor the daring 'Queen Bess'". The Florida Times-Union. p. A-4.

8. Sprekelmeyer, Linda, editor. ^ These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame. Donning Co. Publishers, 2006. ISBN 978-1-57864-397-4.

9. ^ "Bessie Coleman, first African American woman to earn a pilot's license, honored by All-Black, female airline crew". .

Works cited

Further reading

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 - April 30, 1926) was an early American civil aviator. She was the first African-American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license. She earned her license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale on June 15, 1921, and was the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license.