Gender, Property Rights, and Intellectual Exclusion

Sor Juana lived in a system that denied women formal education, property ownership, and public intellectual authority. These restrictions were interconnected: excluding women from knowledge meant excluding them from economic participation and property claims. She understood that injustice against women was not incidental but structural—built into institutions designed to deny female intellectual autonomy and economic independence. Libertarian justice must grapple with this: any system that systematically excludes a group from intellectual participation and property rights violates fundamental principles. Sor Juana's fight was not merely personal but a challenge to the legitimacy of gendered property denial. She argued that women possess the same rational capacity and moral claim to knowledge and self-ownership as men. In modern contexts, this concept demands examining how gender shapes access to property, education, and intellectual authority. It reveals how discrimination is often enforced through knowledge restriction and institutional gatekeeping rather than explicit force. It supports women's equal claims to intellectual work, property in their own creations, and recognition as autonomous thinkers and creators.