Refuse and Resistance: Strategic Non-Compliance

Sor Juana's famous 'Respuesta a Sor Filotea'—her refusal to obey her bishop's prohibition on writing—models strategic resistance that preserves autonomy without violent conflict. She complied with surface demands while continuing her intellectual work, protecting her freedom through careful defiance. In libertarian justice, this concept legitimizes non-violent resistance to property confiscation, censorship, and freedom restrictions. Refuse and resistance acknowledge that individuals possess the right to decline unjust authority's commands over their property, time, and minds. Sor Juana's approach shows how marginalized people—women, the colonized—can maintain freedom despite institutional power imbalances. Applied today, this framework supports civil disobedience, tax resistance, and institutional exit as valid responses to violations of liberty. It recognizes that true justice sometimes requires refusing to cooperate with injustice.