The Economics of Gender and Excluded Persons

Women in Sor Juana's era could not own property independently, could not control inheritance, and were economically dependent on male guardians. This legal disability meant that women's labor and property were systematically extracted and controlled by others—a form of enslavement within property systems. Sor Juana recognized that excluding persons from property ownership does not eliminate their economic activity; it merely ensures that their labor benefits others without consent or compensation. Her demand for intellectual property rights and recognition as a knowledge-producer directly challenged economic structures that rendered women's work invisible and unpaid. Libertarian justice requires that all persons have equal capacity to own, control, and benefit from their property and labor. Systems that exclude by identity convert entire groups into economic dependents whose exploitation is normalized as natural. Sor Juana's assertion of her intellectual ownership and right to benefit from her work was economic resistance: she claimed her labor as her own.