Intellectual Property as Self-Ownership

Sor Juana's prolific writings—poetry, drama, theological essays—embodied her claim to intellectual ownership in a society that denied women property rights. She argued that the mind's creations belong to the thinker, not to patriarchal institutions or patrons. This concept treats intellectual property not as monopoly, but as the natural extension of self-ownership: just as you own your body, you own your thoughts and their expression. For libertarian justice, this reclaims property rights from institutional gatekeepers, asserting that freedom requires control over one's own knowledge production. Sor Juana's defiant scholarship models resistance to confiscation of intellectual labor by church and state authorities.