Women In Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz And Catalina De Erauso
In the seventeenth century the lives and roles of women were severely limited. Formation of severe gender norms for gender identification were enforced. Most especially women were denied education. Despite limited access two women were able to overcome gender limitations when it came to education. Both went about it in different ways although they had similar origins. These women were Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and Catalina de Erauso. These noblewomen became catholic nuns. One sought an education from of the church. The other attended a university, Sor Juana stayed a nun. Catalina defied gender norms, cross-dressed and left the convent. In this way Sor Juana did more to influence public opinion regulating patriarchy and the treatment of gender
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She described her early life “My parents, Captain Don Miguel de Erauso and Dona Maria Perez de Galarraga y Arce, were native-born residents of the town, and they raised me at home with my brothers and sisters until I was four. In 1589, they placed me in a convent of Dominican nuns there in town… with my aunt Dona Ursula y Sarasti, who was my mother’s sister and the prioress of the convent.” This allowed Catrina to receive a fine education from the Covent system. This continued until, as she stated, “I lived there until the age of fifteen, in the training for the day I would profess myself a nun.” After a quarrel with another nun she left. She took on the social gender of a man and thereafter dressed in male clothing. Her education, her masculine appearence, the convent and her family connections made life pretending easier than one would expect education. She recalled, she “met a certain doctor of theology, Don Francisco de Cerralta, who took me in without fuss, despite the fact he did not know me… he was married… to yet another of my mother’s sisters.” Taking on the persona of a man made it so that “the doctor, seeing that I read Latin well, took a fancy to me and got the idea in his head I should continue my training as his
She described her early life “My parents, Captain Don Miguel de Erauso and Dona Maria Perez de Galarraga y Arce, were native-born residents of the town, and they raised me at home with my brothers and sisters until I was four. In 1589, they placed me in a convent of Dominican nuns there in town… with my aunt Dona Ursula y Sarasti, who was my mother’s sister and the prioress of the convent.” This allowed Catrina to receive a fine education from the Covent system. This continued until, as she stated, “I lived there until the age of fifteen, in the training for the day I would profess myself a nun.” After a quarrel with another nun she left. She took on the social gender of a man and thereafter dressed in male clothing. Her education, her masculine appearence, the convent and her family connections made life pretending easier than one would expect education. She recalled, she “met a certain doctor of theology, Don Francisco de Cerralta, who took me in without fuss, despite the fact he did not know me… he was married… to yet another of my mother’s sisters.” Taking on the persona of a man made it so that “the doctor, seeing that I read Latin well, took a fancy to me and got the idea in his head I should continue my training as his