Gender as Arbitrary Basis for Exclusion

Sor Juana's greatest battles concerned institutional claims that women should not engage in intellectual work, hold property independently, or exercise public voice. Libertarian justice requires that restrictions on freedom and property rights be justified by reasons intrinsic to the activity itself, not by arbitrary characteristics like sex. The Church's prohibition on women theologians rested not on demonstrated inability but on tradition and control. This concept reframes gender discrimination as property violation: when law or custom prevents women from owning property, entering professions, or controlling their own earnings and time, it amounts to systematic theft of the fruits of their labor and liberty. Sor Juana's writings demonstrate that intellectual capacity knows no sex; restrictions are imposed, not natural. Libertarian justice requires either rational, activity-specific justifications for limits on freedom, or removal of the limits. Gender-based restrictions almost never meet this standard, making them violations of fundamental rights to property and freedom.