Intersectional Property Rights

Sor Juana was a woman, of mixed heritage, in a theocratic society, navigating claims to intellectual authority in all these dimensions simultaneously. She could not separate her struggle for freedom of thought from her position as a woman denied intellectual credibility, or her status as a person of African and indigenous descent in a colonial racial hierarchy. Her insights into justice must account for these intersections. In libertarian justice, property rights and freedom are not abstractions; they're exercised by particular people in particular positions of vulnerability. Sor Juana's example insists that libertarian justice must recognize how barriers to freedom compound—how sex, race, and religion interact to multiply the obstacles to autonomy and property rights. True libertarian justice cannot treat individuals as disembodied rational agents; it must account for the specific, intersecting ways that power operates to deny some people's fundamental rights while protecting others'.