The list of women teeming in Mexican politics these days is long. There was never a time in the country’s history when the word politics was so feminine. The use of the first name is more visible: Claudia, Lilly, Xóchitl, another Claudia, Beatriz, Luisa María, Alicia, Delfina, Alejandra… All of course have their surname and their own ideology, so you can assert yourself, without taking the risk that the future destiny of this vast, for others sexist, territory is in the hands not of one woman but of several. Another thing will be that they represent a feminist agenda and that they act on criteria different from those that have been known for centuries. The present moment is not the achievement of any government, it is the feminists who claim for their trenches the change it has wrought, sweet in the quantitative but still uncertain in the qualitative. “It’s time for women,” said former mayor and current presidential candidate of the Morenists, Claudia Sheinbaum, a few days ago. And he’s not wrong about that.
The struggle of women in recent years has caused a tsunami for feminism in Mexico, a movement stronger than ever and which, as always, has suffered from advances. In the legislative field, full institutional parity has been achieved, not to mention many other state-of-the-art laws already in place, at least on paper. And these changes have had to rely on the union and political will of many of them, who put the fight for equality above the intentions of their leaders. Notable has been the wave of criticism and censorship of the 2021 Morenista candidate for Guerrero governorship, Félix Salgado Macedonio, who faces rape charges and has an ugly macho record. They harassed and beat him from within and outside the ranks, which means they broke the will of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which, by the way, wasn’t easy. It was his daughter. Evelyn Salgado, who had to lead the cartel and is now President of this state. In the wake of all this, a law was enacted that, for example, removes from public power those who have a merit card like Salgado Macedonio’s or have separated parents with child support debts. The same applies to the equality marker.
A name has long been forcefully forced into women’s payrolls. Claudia Sheinbaum conquered the mayoralty of the Mexican capital for a woman for the first time in history and since then her name has not stopped ringing, to this day it is included in the preferences of millions of citizens in view of the new presidency The country in the year 2024. Another milestone was marked when Norma Piña took over the presidency of the Supreme Court, also in the hands of a woman for the first time. Feminism has plagued López Obrador like a nightmare throughout his tenure. The president’s mistakes in this area, and they were not few, were followed by a torrent of criticism, both in the institutions and on the street. But one thing is non-negotiable, and that is joint cabinets. You have to resort to the same expression: I’ve never seen anything like it. His last two appointments, Alicia Bárcena as foreign minister and Luisa María Alcalde as interior minister, have been celebrated even by those who disagree with the president. The parity achieved has meant that there have been a significant number of female governors in those years. In the country’s most populous state, the state of Mexico, two women recently fought and today Delfina Gómez is the governor. It has never been seen before.
Feminist Patricia Olamendi, always very critical of López Obrador’s power on this issue and angered by the “reversals in equality seen around the world, immersed in the vengeance of patriarchy,” retains her dose of hope before, without however , for the moment that Mexico is going through on this matter, it does not hesitate to attribute it to the stubborn struggle of feminism. “In 2019, we achieved equality in all areas, so political participation is already a right for women and a duty of the state, which may not want it, but it will have it,” says this advocate and UN Women representative .
“Equality applies to all,” Olamendi recalls, which of course means some of them won’t defend the feminist agenda, but she hopes “their presence will make a difference in some way.” Nobody expects Lilly Téllez, one of the opposition’s presidential candidates, to defend abortion, for example. That same Saturday, on the occasion of Gay Pride, he corrected the saying “Jeder” instead of “Jeder”, the generic masculine, and everyone knows that homophobia and machismo are two sides of the same coin. “We hope that those who arrive have at least some social commitment, no longer feminist but ethical. Feminism has made impressive strides in Mexico. And that makes the difference,” he says. However, not all members of the opposition are in such a right arc. Claudia Ruiz Massieu and Beatriz Paredes are also candidates for the PRI, PAN and PRD coalition, to name two much more moderate examples. And Xóchitl Gálvez also announces that he wants to introduce himself.
He is particularly pleased with the arrival of Luisa María Alcalde, 35, in the governor’s office, who has been hit on social networks by the most dense part of the population with mentions so macho that they are already an anachronism. “This misogyny, these stereotypes must come to an end,” Olamendi fights. “We may vote for them or not, but their right to participate in politics cannot be denied.” “If out of all who arrive just one applies equality criteria, that’s progress,” he adds.
“A woman’s body is useless in itself,” begins Leticia Bonifaz, more pessimistic than Olamendi. “And nobody should think that it was achieved on their own, it was the struggle of a whole group,” warns the UNAM law professor. In his opinion, the placement of a woman is no guarantee of a different way of governing, and he has no lack of reason and example anywhere in the world. With Claudia Sheinbaum [en el gobierno de la capital] There was no empathy for the feminist movement, which she does not come from. And Lilly Téllez, who is anti-abortion, scares me. About Delfina Gómez, we already know that she is not a feminist and governor of Baja California [María del Pilar Ávila] “He yelled at his opponent, ‘Come on, cry’, repeating those macho stereotypes that men can’t cry,” he says. “There is a lack of gender training,” says Bonifaz. But she also refers to other politicians for her feminist commitment, such as Martha Tagle or Patricia Mercado. Or Angela Merkel (Germany), Jacinta Ardern (New Zealand) or Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Iceland) at international level.
Boniface, a specialist in feminism, also warns of the danger of naming women who, under the all-powerful command of a boss, can only act as a vase, which Olga Sánchez Cordero, for example, who used to be a secretary, complained about at some point in private. of the Interior Ministry in the first cabinet of López Obrador. In short, Bonifaz is “not optimistic at all”: “With no gender awareness or perspective, why,” he says. But she, like so many, also has a glimmer of hope for what the feminist movement has accomplished, and she knows that where many arrive, you can always expect someone to have a firm grip on the equality agenda. In a country like Mexico, where an average of ten women are killed a day, this policy cannot wait.
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