Rights of Women as Thinking Agents

Sor Juana's life and writings—particularly her defense in the Response to Sor Filotea—constitute a radical claim: women are thinking beings with minds capable of philosophy, science, and theology, deserving equal access to knowledge and intellectual property rights. Libertarian justice cannot be fully realized if half the population is denied education, property ownership, or intellectual freedom based on sex. Sor Juana challenged the assumption that women's minds were lesser and therefore undeserving of freedom. This concept establishes that libertarian justice is incomplete without recognizing women as full intellectual and economic agents with the same rights to learn, create, own, and benefit from their work as men.