'All together', the women who promote the political careers of other women in Mexico

First, they planned to prepare themselves to occupy positions of political representation in Mexico: “a feminist party,” they thought.

But then, they realized that that was not their purpose and came to the conclusion that, although they care a lot about the way politics is done in their country, they are not the ones who wanted to play that role.

So they created an organization in which all women were the support of one: “All in one.”

This is how Auna was born, the citizen platform where professional women from various disciplines—filmmakers, producers, lawyers, political scientists, etc.—convene other women from all over the country to support them, train them, train them, and accompany them in their search for an elected position. popular.

They have been alive as an organization for just over three years, and on its platform, Auna already has the photograph of one of the most important faces for the election process in Mexico in 2024: the candidate to govern the capital of Mexico: the morenista , Clara Brugada.

The process for her has been the same that any candidate has to follow, and she has completed it in a timely manner, they say, like the others.

Being a nominee—like Brugada and 74 other women accepted by the organization to be accompanied to run for political office in 2024—means receiving ongoing training and training from all of those who make up the team.

Auna has a presence in Mexico City, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Guerrero and Oaxaca, so its members also know and master the local issues of each entity.

“Why are the most prepared not reaching the positions that were opening up for women in politics?

That was the question we asked ourselves, the indignation,” explains Mariana Linares, one of Auna's spokespersons.

The structure in this organization is horizontal, each of the members performs a different function to coordinate area by area.

In the end, everyone's work has a direct impact on the nominees' comprehensive program.

“We have invented a space where those who arrive find their place,” says Linares.

Members of Auna at a work meeting, in their offices in the south of Mexico City, on January 11. Gladys Serrano

The process to be a Auna nominee

Any woman in Mexico who intends to participate in a popular representation election can go to Auna first, even to land her own ideas about a future political leadership project;

even those who have already participated in other processes or who belong to a party.

That is another of the important characteristics of the organization: in Auna there are women from all parties and their selection as nominees depends on a series of tests that a committee evaluates to have those selected.

Mónica Tapia, who is a political scientist and has worked for more than two decades in civil society organizations, is in charge of the political strategy that those selected must establish once they are part of the platform.

For her, Auna is a tool for more and more women in positions of power and within political parties to carry out the agendas and discussions that they see as urgent and necessary.

“We hope that we continue to have a multiple party system, and that although we have differences, we know how to deal with them,” she adds.

A “hinge” generation, a space in which everyone fits

Dafne Pimentel Corona studied International Relations at the College of Mexico, and before finishing her degree she began working with Auna.

Pimentel is 25 years old, and is the coordinator of the organization's Mexico City chapter.

She has been one of the direct links in the efforts for Auna to add Clara Brugada in the capital.

“We had many internal conversations among ourselves and with an honorary council that guides us.

She was the only one of the women the city was looking for, who signed up to do the process.

We spoke with her and her team to find out if our agendas shared the vision and programmatic agendas.”

Dafne Pimentel, coordinator of the organization's Mexico City chapter. Gladys Serrano

Pimentel Corona is one of the youngest women who make up the organization, which exists and is maintained through small donations, but above all, through annual contributions from other women who provide the resources to make the machinery work.

“We have two fundamental pillars, one is the women who make up the network and who contribute an amount of money voluntarily — it is an annual contribution that allows us to sustain what we do — and, on the other hand, the women who we accompany with our different processes, that is, the nominees,” he explains.

All of them, nominees, partners and companions, make decisions together and establish the limits of their negotiations with political parties.

For Linares, those who created this organization are, for the most part, women who belong to a kind of “hinge generation” that seeks to be a bridge between a world that functions as we know it and another that advances through new collaborations with women in the power they make decisions in favor of their communities.

“We hinge communities, generations, generic sex diversity, we hinge ideologies.

As?

Well I don't know how to say it.

It has a mystique that I don't know how it happens.

We have made our platform based on the fact that “do” is the best way to say.

We have integrated trans women, also women who support sexuality and reproductive rights, but we also have women from right-wing parties, and that is a very complicated thing to understand, but feminisms are plural, and what we want to achieve is that one does not cancel out the other, but rather we need to complement them,” says Linares.

Princesa Cabrera is an indigenous woman, Nahua, 31 years old, and the coordinator of the organization in the State of Guerrero.

Her work consists, above all, of providing guidance and help to the indigenous women of her State—an entity historically forgotten and hit by violence and marginalization.

“One of our strengths is that the women we are accompanying here are constantly working in communities, holding meetings, and visiting other women in the interior, and I think that we have been missing that, that political representatives have the sensitivity to go to these places, not only in campaign.

“Let those who reach positions of power know their contexts,” she says.

Princesa Cabrera, coordinator of the organization in the State of Guerrero. Gladys Serrano

In Guerrero, explains Cabrera, they currently have nine nominees, distributed in four of the eight regions of the State.

Its objective is to have representatives of each of them.

The profiles of those selected are activists, human rights promoters, Afro-Mexican representatives, among others.

One of the most valuable things about this organization – to which some 300 women of all profiles registered for the 2024 electoral process – is that the support is comprehensive, and also happens even after the elections, when the candidates They know if they have won or lost: “You don't go out alone, because even if a party supports you, you are Auna.

If you launch yourself like Auna, the rest of the country's Aunas are there, attentive, pending.

They will accompany you if you lose – which happens to us a lot – and they will be the ones who will accompany you throughout this process of what it means to be a woman in politics in this country,” they say.

The work team of Auna.Gladys Serrano

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