Mexico’s next president will be a woman. The June 2 election came down to two women and governing party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum romped to victory. She will be the first female president in the history of North America and arrives 70 years after women won the right to vote in Mexico.
Sheinbaum’s victory has opened the debate over gender, inequality and femicides. Will she resolve deep-rooted problems of macho violence? Could the next president expand reproductive rights? Will she make room in her administration for the feminist agenda?
Mexican women discuss their hopes and expectations for the country's first female president:
Women are 51% of Mexico’s population and at the same time make up the majority of eligible voters.
But between nine and 10 women are killed daily and more than four in 10 say they’ve experienced at least one instance of violence, according to government data.
Their access to the labor market has improved over the years. Still, the spaces for women in the workforce continue to be fewer than for men. At the end of 2023, 76% of men had jobs, compared to 46% of women.
While some women contend with making a space for themselves in the professional world despite unequal treatment and a lack of opportunities, its still other women who who fill the space they leave behind in the home. Those domestic workers continue working in precarious conditions without job security.
In the political realm, there have been advances. Since 2018, gender parity is required in Mexico’s Congress. Women currently hold the top posts in the Senate, Chamber of Deputies and the Supreme Court, among other high-level government positions.
But meanwhile, women are still responsible for the bulk of childcare and work around the home. And while abortion has been decriminalized nationwide, but is still limited locally in some states.
If being Indigenous is added to being a woman, the situation becomes even more difficult. In Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state which also has the highest rate of adolescent pregnancy, many Indigenous women continue without a voice in their own homes and communities.
Younger generations there are making the push for change, but it comes slowly as young women and adolescents discuss the role of women in their communities and imagine what their futures could be.
In this historic election year, AP looks at the roles of women around Mexico -- from the largest cities to rural communities – a country so far only governed by men.
