Intellectual Property as Self-Ownership

Sor Juana's prolific writings—poetry, plays, theological treatises—were acts of intellectual self-determination in a society that denied women formal education and public voice. She claimed the right to think, publish, and defend her ideas as property of her own mind. In Libertarian justice, intellectual property becomes not a corporate monopoly but a natural extension of self-ownership: your thoughts belong to you, your words are yours to publish or withhold, your discoveries are your own. Sor Juana's insistence on this principle—despite church censure and social pressure—models how property rights protect the vulnerable from erasure. When we recognize intellectual property as rooted in personal autonomy rather than state grant, we defend the freedom of all minds to create, own, and benefit from their own work.