The possibility of Mexico having its first female president is closer than ever.
The ruling party Claudia Sheinbaum and the opposition party Xóchitl Gálvez are the two leaders in the race towards the elections on June 2.
For a woman to come to power would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago in a highly sexist country.
However, the push of the feminist movement has consolidated that the possibility is real, although the relationship of the candidates with feminism itself is questionable.
“We have to see the arrival of a woman to the presidency as a triumph, even if none of them are feminists,” comments journalist and activist Lucía Lagunes.
On the occasion of International Women's Day, this March 8, EL PAÍS speaks with several experts, academics, politicians and activists to analyze the coming panorama, what can be expected from the role that women will have in this election and if the policies of Equality will become a reality beyond political speeches.
Both Claudia Sheinbaum, from the Morena party;
such as Xóchitl Gálvez, from the PRI, PAN, PRD have echoed various issues that affect women in Mexico, such as violence, care or the lack of economic support and opportunities.
Some critical voices question, however, that these are only measures or programs and not so much an articulated public policy.
“A policy is necessary whose central axis is to end discrimination against women in all areas: the economy, security, education, foreign policy...,” comments former deputy and gender consultant Martha Tagle.
Among some of these measures, Sheinbaum has indicated that he will elevate equality between men and women to constitutional status so that all governments have parity by law.
Gálvez, on the other hand, has given more weight to insecurity and violence.
“If deep citizen and institutional agreements are not sought to transform inequalities, we will continue to have institutions with very long names and without any weight such as the National Commission to Prevent Violence against Women (Conavim) or the Women's Institute (Inmujeres) ”Adds Lagunes.
More than 10 murdered a day
Violence is another of the topics that cannot be missed when talking about women in Mexico.
In the last 20 years, femicides and murders of women have only increased and now exceed 10 murdered every day.
2023 closed with more than 3,000 murdered and so far this year the figure has already risen to more than 1,000.
To these data we must add one more: every day six women disappear in the country and another 60 are raped.
Sheinbaum, former head of Government of Mexico City, has proposed continuing with the security strategy during her Administration and developing Prosecutor's Offices specialized in femicides throughout the country, a figure that already exists in at least 19 States.
She has also proposed that every violent death of a woman be investigated as a femicide, something that the Supreme Court has mandated since 2015.
Protesters carry crosses with photographs of women victims of feminicide, in a protest in 2020. Gladys Serrano
Gálvez has advocated the fight against gender violence from her personal experience.
“I am a woman like many women who suffered violence as a child and it is clear to me that there must be zero impunity for perpetrators.”
The opposition candidate has proposed creating a national victim care fund, focused on the children of missing and murdered people and women victims of feminicide.
She has also proposed “improving the legal framework that protects women” and counting on the budget necessary to care for them.
However, Gálvez has not yet given specific details of what her strategy will be like.
“They make proposals, but they don't tell us how they are going to end the violence,” says María de la Luz Estrada, director of the National Femicide Observatory, something with which lawyer Patricia Olamendi agrees: “So far they have only proposed generalities.” .
For Maisse Hubert, deputy director of the organization Equis Justicia para las Mujeres, the problem lies in the fact that security policies in Mexico are designed to address “consummated violence,” not to prevent it from happening.
“We do not see strategies from the candidates that seek to strengthen the protection of women at risk of experiencing violence,” she points out.
A National System of Care
If both candidates agree on something, it is in recognizing the feminization of care and the weight that it has for women in society.
A recent study showed that women are in charge of 76% of the tasks that have to do with taking care of the house and children.
Xóchitl Gálvez has advocated for the return of child care centers, eliminated in the López Obrador Government, as well as full-time schools so that women can work.
Sheinbaum has proposed the creation of public early childhood care and education centers.
Both have promised financial support for working mothers.
The Morena candidate announced the payment of a pension for all those women who cannot retire between the ages of 60 and 64 because they have not contributed to the IMSS.
“It would be the first time that the State recognizes the care work that women mostly do,” highlights Renata Turrent, liaison coordinator with the Dialogues for Transformation of the Sheinbaum campaign.
Along the same lines, the candidate pointed out that she will recognize the agrarian rights of 150,000 women, something new in a country where the majority of women do not own the land, which deepens the feminization of poverty.
Both Gálvez and Sheinbaum have proposed promoting a National Care System, a measure that was stuck in the Senate during the last legislature and that both have now taken up as their banner.
Gálvez has indicated that, in addition to the previous measures, they will support people with a family member with a disability, whether a child, young person or adult, so that they have education, health and employment.
“We are going to remove the barriers,” said the opposition candidate.
For her part, Sheinbaum has proposed that this system be managed through the DIF, the National System for the Comprehensive Development of the Family.
Abortion, the great absentee
The absence of abortion in the speeches of both candidates is striking, a right that has not yet been legislated in 21 states of the country and to which, however, neither of the candidates has referred during the campaign.
“We hope that when talking about sexual and reproductive health, they also include legal and safe abortion services and that the Health system is strengthened,” says Rebeca Ramos, director of the Information Group on Chosen Reproduction (GIRE).
In the last five years, Mexico has made progress on this issue thanks to the Supreme Court resolution of 2022, when it declared the crime of abortion unconstitutional throughout the country.
Despite everything, there are still many difficulties for women to access a free, safe and free abortion in hospitals throughout the country.
“I don't think any of them have a problem with the right to abortion but they have preferred not to rock those waters,” says Olamendi.
Women at the March for Access to Legal and Safe Abortion Day, on September 28, 2023 in Mexico City. Mónica González Islas
Sheinbaum includes the right to sexual and reproductive health in general in his program, while Gálvez has not mentioned the issue, perhaps so as not to bother part of his most conservative electorate.
“I believe that Sheinbaum implicitly includes abortion when talking about guaranteeing sexual and reproductive health from the beginning of women's lives,” says Turrent and recognizes that it is a “political decision to treat it that way so as not to generate a immediate rejection.”
In the case of Xóchitl Gálvez the approach is similar.
“Several PAN women agreed not to insist on the issue and to comply with what the Court has said,” says Olamendi.
“I think that both have chosen to let this issue take its course because a debate of that nature could harm either of them,” she adds.
“None of the candidates is convinced that the central axis has to be ending discrimination against women.
Both Xóchitl and Claudia are trapped between these masculine powers and pacts of politics,” says Lagunes.
“We have insisted that they think like women, that they put the women's agenda at the center, if they really want to change the situation.
I think that if they freed themselves a little from the males around them, it would be very good for them,” Olamendi remarks.
Next March 8, women will march throughout the country to demand an end to violence and brutality.
Hundreds of them will come out for their mothers, their daughters, their sisters and their friends.
For those who are no longer here and for those who will come.
Most will do so away from political figures, but with their eyes on what will probably be the first female president of Mexico.
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS México newsletter
and the
electoral WhatsApp
channel and receive all the key information on current events in this country.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_