Not all of the women I choose to write about will be of a literary or Hispanic nature, but when I first read Catalina de Erauso’s Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez, I was floored.
Here was a woman who was put in a convent in the first few years of her life, and at 15 years old, after never having seen what the outside world looked like, let alone a city street, decided to leave.
Here was a woman who knew not only herself, but also the society that she lived in so well, that while still a teenager, she decided she couldn’t be a nun but also knew that she couldn’t live as an independent woman as she wished.
So what did she do? She began to dress herself as a man and became a soldier, living in Spain and then in the New World.
As if this isn’t extreme or stunning enough, when her true identity is discovered years later and she is called back to Europe to be questioned, she decides to go to Rome and confront the Pope by herself to convince him why she should be able to continue dressing and living as she pleases. And the Pope listens.
Catalina de Erauso returns to Chile and lives the rest of her days as a mule driver until her death in 1650, eventually writing her memoir that was mentioned above.
Many people refer to her as a transvestite, but this is somewhat controversial as no one knows her true gender identity. Furthermore, it is speculated that her crossdressing actually had nothing to do with gender at all. It is more likely that she dressed as a man simply to avoid the scandal and repercussions she would have had had she lived as a woman.
But here is a woman who was brave enough to confront society and be her true self, no matter what the cost. In this contemporary society that continues to repress women and treats men as the more entitled and deserving gender, she serves as an inspiration to anyone seeking to rebel against what society has always told us to be true. I would encourage anyone to read the English translation of her memoir, titled Memoir of a Basque Lieutenant Nun.