By MEGAN JANETSKI, ALBA ALEMÁN
A woman holds up a sign with a message in Spanish; “I will decide” as she joins a march demanding legal, free and safe abortions for all women, marking International Safe Abortion Day, in Mexico City, September 28, 2022. Mexico’s Supreme Court, on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, decriminalized abortion nationwide. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, file)
Electing a woman president would be a big step forward in a country where levels of gender-based violence And deep gender disparities.
Mexico still has a famously intense “machismo” or culture of male chauvinism that has created great economic and social disparities in society. In its most extreme form, misogyny is expressed in high rates of femicideand things like acid attacks on women.
Both favorites Claudia Sheinbaum and opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez promised to tackle high rates of gender-based violence and gender disparities if they won.
In this socially conservative country, a historic number of women are rising to leadership positions and holding political positions.
This is due in part to decades of government efforts toward greater political representation, including laws requiring political parties to have half of their congressional candidates be women. Since 2018, Mexico’s Congress has been split 50-50 and the number of female governors has exploded.
Waiting to vote in her first election, Evelyn Elizondo Valdez, 20, of Xalapa, Veracruz, was happy to have two women to choose from on the ballot.
“It has been very costly for women to gain public office,” Elizondo said. “And even if they deny it, Claudia (Sheinbaum) is still an extension of (President Andrés Manuel López Obrador), a man. That’s why I think it should be Xóchitl (Gálvez).”
In Mexico City, Guillermina Romero, 59, hugged Sheinbaum when she came to vote.
Romero said her husband came from a sexist family and that her mother was abused by her father. But she has seen the change Mexico has seen over time. As she stood next to her daughter, who was also voting, she said it gave her hope.
Having a woman president “means that Mexico has changed, that they take us into account,” she said.
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News Source : apnews.com
