The strategy of refusing institutional demands while maintaining internal dissent, or withdrawing consent and presence—exemplified by Sor Juana's final retreat.
Sor Juana's eventual withdrawal from public intellectual life, after decades of resistance to ecclesiastical pressure, illustrates both the costs of institutional constraint and the power of exit. She did not capitulate ideologically but removed her labor and voice from institutions that would control them. In libertarian frameworks, exit is a non-coercive response to rights violations: when an institution—government, church, or corporation—demands surrender of conscience or autonomy, individuals retain the right to leave. Sor Juana's silence was not defeat but a final assertion of property in her own work and mind. This concept validates withdrawal and non-compliance as libertarian tools, showing that the freedom to exit is as important as the freedom to speak, and that some forms of resistance involve withholding participation.
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