This beautiful young lady is Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana (1651-1695), or as she would later become known, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. And she was a badass.
The woman at whom you are daring to look was a kickass feminist (and possibly lesbian) writer, poet, and nun. That’s right, nun - drop your stereotypes, because she doesn’t fit in any of your shoeboxes.A self-taught scholar, she had to overcome all odds to become the boss whom she inarguably is known as today. The illegitimate child of a Spanish captain and a Criollo woman, she grew up the daughter of a single mother in a society that frowned upon women doing much other than existing quietly. Juana was a devout child who would steal away to read her grandfather’s books, although girls were forbidden from doing so, and learned to read and write in various languages at very young ages. She attempted to disguise herself as a male student to enter university in Mexico City at age 16, but was found out and made to continue her studies privately under the Vicereine Leonor Carreto. Leonor’s husband, the Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, doubted the teenage Juana’s supposed intelligence, so he invited theologians, lawyers, philosophers, and poets to test her education. She stunned them all with her bright, articulate presence, and her reputation became known quickly throughout New Spain (as Mexico was then called). Her literary and poetic accomplishments, in addition to her beauty, made her a famous member of the viceregal court, where she declined several proposals of marriage.
She shocked the court when she entered the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Joseph as a postulant in 1667. In 1669, she entered the Convent of the Order of St. Jérôme. Far from becoming the silent, obedient stereotype of the Catholic woman religious, her writings became even more strident and firm. In response to her critics, Juana penned the Respuesta a Sor Filotea (Reply to Sister Philothea) in which she defended a woman’s right to education. The Catholic hierarchy and other prominent male officials condemned and censored her work in view of its “waywardness,” forcing her to do public penance. Juana’s pen fell curiously silent, as the Church published penitential documents to which her name had been affixed. Since she had been silenced by the outside world, Juana instead turned to other forms of service, including her ministry to her fellow nuns who were stricken by the plague. The doctor became a patient as Juana herself fell victim to this plague in 1695.
So let’s recap: Juana taught herself literacy and languages when women’s education was practically nonexistent, wrote homoerotic love poetry when homosexuality probably could have gotten her killed, and published anti-hierarchical feminist works from a colonial era convent.
If you aren’t thoroughly impressed into having a history crush on her, at least admit she’s freaking gorgeous, too.