Elena Poniatowska poses for a photo at her home on May 28, 2024 in Mexico City.
Israel Fogelman /NPR
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Israel Fogelman /NPR
MEXICO CITY — Elena Poniatowska, 92, is one of Mexico’s most prominent writers, chronicling decades of the country’s women’s history.
“I’ve always believed in women,” Poniatowska told NPR, just days before a historic election in which one of two women could become Mexico’s most powerful politician.
“I think this is not a dream. I think this is a battle that has been won. Poniatowska said morning edition.
She admitted that the enthusiasm was lower than that of Hilary Clinton’s 2016 US campaign, which she attributed to Mexican voters taking it for granted and seeing it as “completely natural”.
Even for her, she said, “It’s not a miracle. It’s not a big surprise.”
The two leading candidates in the race are both women: ruling party candidate Claudia Scheinbaum and opposition candidate Xochitel Galvez. On Sunday, Scheinbaum, the candidate backed by Poniatowska, is likely to become the most powerful woman in Mexico.
Poniatowska is hailed as a feminist trailblazer who documented the triumphs of writers, painters and other famous women fighting systemic inequality and misogyny. Decades ago, she even met the woman who currently leads by double digits in the polls in prison, when Poniatowska was interviewing political prisoners and Scheinbaum accompanied her mother. Her mother is also visiting prisoners. Does Poniatowska find Sheinbaum extraordinary?
“I thought she was beautiful and smart and I was happy to be with a woman in college.”
As for a woman making it to Mexico’s National Palace, she attributes it to hard work and feminist intentions.
After achieving parity in Mexico’s Congress in 2018, women united to push for a constitutional amendment demanding equality in all aspects of public life – from the presidential cabinet, party candidates, legislative bodies and courts.
“This is how I imagined (it). I worked hard for this. I not only wanted this to happen. Women are now invading areas they didn’t know they had before,” Poniatowska said. “The only woman they used to talk about was the artist Frida Kahlo…so now there are other women scientists, astronomers, women in hospitals, women all over the world.”
She once wrote of a country where, in the 1920s, women were despised, abandoned, consumed, stigmatized, and “hanged from the tree of patriarchy.” But she insists she never doubted that women would “run an entire huge country”.
Sitting at home with a backdrop of bright orchids and walls lined with bookshelves and photos, Poniatowska recalled being inspired by her mother’s heroic actions driving an ambulance in France during World War II. She also told the story of how, under cover of darkness, her mother coaxed a stray donkey into her van to transport it to a safer location to escape Nazi detection.
“If you can save a donkey,” she said, it meant women could do anything.
She said these elections – this “victory for women” – gave me personal satisfaction.
Lilly Quiroz produced the audio version of this story and Majd Al-Waheidi edited it digitally.
