Elena Poniatowska poses for a portrait at her home in Mexico City on May 28, 2024.
Israel Fuguemann /NPR
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Israel Fuguemann /NPR
MEXICO CITY — At 92, Elena Poniatowska, one of Mexico’s most prominent writers, has traced decades of women’s history in the country.
“I’ve always believed in women,” Poniatowska told NPR, two days before a historic election in which one in two women will likely become Mexico’s most powerful political figure.
“I think it’s not a dream. I think it’s a battle that has been won. Poniatowska said on Morning edition.
She acknowledges that the enthusiasm does not match the fervor that surrounded Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the United States in 2016, saying that is because Mexican voters take this for granted and find it ” completely natural.”
Even to herself, she said: “It’s not a miracle. It’s not a big surprise.
The two main candidates in this race are women: Claudia Sheinbaum, candidate of the ruling party, and Xóchitl Gálvez, candidate of the opposition. And next Sunday, Sheinbaum, a candidate backed by Poniatowska, could become the most powerful woman in Mexico.
Known as a pioneering feminist, Poniatowska documented the triumphs of writers, painters and other notable women who fought against systemic inequality and misogyny. Decades ago, she even met the woman who currently holds a double-digit lead in the polls in prison, when Poniatowska interviewed political prisoners and Sheinbaum accompanied her mother, who also visited inmates. Did Poniatowska find Sheinbaum extraordinary?
“I thought at the time that she was very beautiful, that she was very intelligent and that I was happy to be next to a woman who was at university.”
As for a woman who gains access to the National Palace of Mexico, she credits her hard work and feminist intentions.
After achieving parity in Mexico’s Congress in 2018, women banded together to push for a constitutional amendment that would mandate parity in all aspects of public life — from the president’s office to party nominees and beyond. by the legislature and the courts.
“That’s how I imagined it. I worked for it. And I wasn’t just hoping it would happen. Women have now invaded territories they did not know before,” says Poniatowska. “The only woman they talked about was the artist Frida Kahlo…And now there are other women scientists, astronomers, women in hospitals and women everywhere.”
She once spoke of a country in which, in the 1920s, women were disrespected, rejected, consumed, stigmatized and “hung on the tree of patriarchy.” But she insists she never doubted that a woman could “take charge of an entire huge country”.
Sitting in her home with a backdrop of bright orchids and walls of bookshelves and photographs, Poniatowska remembers being inspired by her mother’s courage while driving an ambulance in France during World War II. And she tells a story in which, under the cover of darkness to escape detection by the Nazis, her mother brought a stray donkey into her van to transport it to a safer location.
“If you can save a donkey,” she said, implying that a woman can do anything.
She says these elections – this “triumph of women” – are personally gratifying. “It’s something that makes me happy – that makes me cry sometimes. »
Lilly Quiroz produced the audio version of this story and Majd Al-Waheidi edited it for digital.
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