Mexico is set to elect its first female president on Sunday, a historic leap for a country long known for its machismo and an important moment for North America as a whole.
From the start of the presidential campaign, the only competitive candidates are two women: front-runners Claudia Scheinbaum, a climate scientist from the ruling Morena party, and Xóchitl Galvez Gálvez, an entrepreneur representing the opposition coalition.
The milestone reflects the country’s complicated relationship with women, who face rampant violence and sexism but are also revered as matriarchs and trusted in positions of authority.
Experts say that the reason why China is ahead of its largest trading partner, the United States, has a lot to do with the policies of governments at all levels to open doors for women.
Pushed by women’s rights campaigners, Mexico has passed increasingly broad laws over the past few decades to encourage more women to participate in politics. Then, in 2019, it took the dramatic step of making gender equality a constitutional requirement in all three branches of government.
“On this metric, Mexico is really a model for other countries,” Jennifer Piscopo, a professor of gender and politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, who studies the region, said, adding, “As far as I know, there is no other country that has such complete gender equality. Is the “Constitutional Amendment” that comprehensive? “
Today, half of the country’s legislature is made up of women, while women make up less than 30% of the U.S. Congress. The chief justice of Mexico’s Supreme Court, the leaders of both houses of Congress and the president of the central bank are all women. The same goes for the Ministers of the Interior, Education, Economy, Public Security and Foreign Affairs.
Now, a woman will become the most powerful person in the country, commander of the armed forces and chief executive of Latin America’s second-largest economy.
Alma Lilia Tapia, spokesperson for the Guanajuato state group Families Searching for Missing Relatives, said she believed the two female contenders would pay more attention to Mexico’s nearly 100,000 people than their male predecessors. request from the families of the missing persons.
Thirty-three Mexican women interviewed by The New York Times before the election said they knew that alone would not erase the many indignities they faced. In a country where women are murdered at disproportionately high rates, where their average income is far less than that of men, male chauvinism remains culturally ingrained.
But for many voters and the candidates themselves, having a woman in the nation’s highest office does have symbolic value.
“For me, it is extraordinary that Mexico has a female president,” Ms. Galvez said in a radio interview. “We have taken a very important step in women’s struggle.”
Ms. Sheinbaum acknowledged what this could mean for the next generation.
“When a little girl tells you, ‘I want to be head of government, too,’ the fact is, it brings about huge emotions,” Ms. Scheinbaum told an interviewer. “Not just because of what that recognition means. , but also to see a girl thinking beyond the stereotypes forced upon us women.
While many Latin American countries have pursued quotas for female politicians, Mexico has been particularly active in enacting them, first with local governments and then with the national government.
By 2019, the country passed a constitutional amendment requiring even gender representation in all three branches of government.
The election of a female president ‘wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for equality’ Mónica Tapia, who leads a group that trains Mexican women in political leadership, said.
The United States has never had gender quotas in politics, which are common in many parts of the world, Ms. Piscopo said. Unlike Mexico, which elects its leaders through popular suffrage, the United States operates an Electoral College system. (Hillary Clinton would have won the 2016 US election based solely on the popular vote.)
Women have entered Mexican politics in large numbers over the past few years, transforming the country along with dramatic demographic and cultural shifts.
Half a century ago, the average Mexican family had seven children, and about one in 10 Mexican women was employed. Today, Mexicans have fewer children than Americans, and nearly half of the country’s women are working.
Until 2021, abortion was banned in all but two states. It is now legal in most of the country.
Both candidates promote progressive social policies, such as opposing gay conversion therapy or creating clinics for transgender and non-binary people, leaving some conservative women feeling ignored.
“We support women’s rights, but those women’s rights do not include abortion” or “trans activism,” said Angeles Bravo, a representative of the National Front for the Family, a conservative coalition that opposes abortion and LGBT rights. In the state of Mexico. “And there are a lot of us.”
Some young feminists are skeptical that either candidate will prioritize key issues important to women, such as domestic violence and Mexico’s gender pay gap.
They said the two women appeared to represent only the interests of men — in Ms. Sheinbaum’s case, her mentor and current President Andres Manuel López Obrador Galvez’s interests, and in Ms. Galvez’s case, those of the male leaders of the three main parties she represents.
Wendy Galarza, a 33-year-old women’s rights activist from the state of Quintana Roo, said: “It is of no use to us that a woman becomes president if she continues to live in the shadow of patriarchy.” 2020 She was beaten and shot by police during a demonstration in Cancun.
However, while it’s unclear exactly how much change will occur, in a country where presidents wield broad powers and are often widely respected, a woman in the most powerful position could bring about some change.
“Men are always in the background, but the leadership of a female president in power is crucial,” Ms. Tapia said. She said it tells Mexican women that “your family can’t tell you where a woman’s place is — whether it’s in the kitchen or with her family — it’s wherever you choose.”
