Intersectional Oppression and Compounded Unfreedom

Sor Juana faced not singular oppression but intersecting constraints: as a woman forbidden intellectual authority, as a colonial subject under Spanish dominance, as a creole amid hierarchy, as a nun under ecclesiastical control. Each system restricted her freedom independently; together they created a cage of compounded unfreedom. Libertarian justice cannot address freedom by ignoring these intersections or prioritizing one axis of injustice. This concept demands that analysis include how systems interact—how gender hierarchy empowers state control, how class structures enable racial domination, how religious authority enforces sexual control. Sor Juana's life demonstrates that libertarian freedom requires liberation across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Applied today, it resists single-issue libertarianism that ignores how oppressive systems reinforce each other, and insists that genuine freedom requires dismantling overlapping hierarchies, not just abstract property rights.