Can a Mexican Woman President Improve Gender Equality?

It is newsworthy for a country with a reputation for rampant machismo to potentially have a woman leading at the highest levels of government, but feminists in the country question if it will actually be effective for their struggle. Women in Mexico are still being discriminated against, attacked, and killed. Mexican women are paid much less than men. For every 100 pesos a Mexican man earns in one month, a Mexican woman makes 65. The gap grows when women have children and spend more time doing unpaid labor at home. More than 70% of Mexican women over the age of 15 have experienced at least one incident of psychological, economic, physical, or sexual violence. Femicides, which the United Nations defines as “intentional killing with a gender-related motivation,” have been a long-standing issue in Mexico. And, even with one of the most progressive presidents in the country’s history, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at the helm since 2018, the Mexican government has not made much headway in solving these issues. It should thus come as no surprise that Mexican feminists are skeptical, if not outright pessimistic, when presented with the possibility of a presidenta.