What do we learn about Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz as a child and young woman from "The Response to Sor Filotea?"

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz wrote "Respuesta a Sor Filotea
de la Cruz."

Research shows that Juana
Inez was a bright child with a deep desire to read and learn. Boys were educated at the
time, but not girls. She was discouraged, even scolded for reading, but she taught
herself by sneaking into the library in her grandfather's house. Her intellect brought
her a great deal of attention, but she would ultimately join the church, with no desire
to marry.

In "Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz," she
writes:

What
is true and I will not deny (first because it is public knowledge and then—even if this
counts against me— because God, in His goodness, has favored me with a great love of the
truth) is that from my first glimmers of reason, my inclination to letters was of such
power and vehemence, that neither the reprimands of others— and I have received many—nor
my own considerations—and there have been not a few of those—have succeeded in making me
abandon this natural impulse which God has implanted in me . .
.

Juana Inez continues,
writing about her early education. She was not encouraged to learn, but eventually was
given lessons.

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I say that has not satisfied the three years of
my age when my mother sent my sister, older than me, to be taught to read in one of the
she calls friends, he took me behind her the love and mischief, and seeing that the
lesson gave me so I turned on the desire to read, that cheating, in my opinion, the
teacher, told me Mother ordered to give me lessons. She did not believe, because it was
not credible, but for the grace to please, give me one. I went on to go and she
continued to teach, not of ridicule, because the experience disillusioned, and I learned
to read in such a short time, I knew when I knew my mother, whom the teacher hid him for
giving him a taste for whole and receive the award for together, and I said nothing,
thinking that I whipped for doing so without a
warrant.

Juana Inez admits
that after she learned to read and write, she discovered that young men were educated in
universities. At that point she began to beg her mother to allow her to dress as a young
man and travel to Mexico to study. She was denied her request and had to make due with
reading books in her grandfather's library. Later, she admits, when she traveled to
Mexico, people there were impressed with how much she knew.