Voting and parity are not enough

Yesterday, October 17, 69 years of universal suffrage in Mexico were commemorated, the culmination of long struggles by Mexican women to access their full political rights and the recognition of their citizenship also in civil, social, economic and cultural terms. Since 1953 much has changed but there are still great pending to achieve full citizenship in equality.

In these decades, Mexico and the world have changed, society is more plural, the discourse of human rights and gender equality has become globalized, and the value of women’s participation in the public and labor spheres is evident. In legal terms, the changes are unquestionable: as a result of the recognition of political equality, discriminatory laws were modified, the equality of men and women is inscribed in the Constitution, we have an Equality Law and a Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence. The electoral legal framework was adjusted to the demands of organized women through quotas that compensated for historical inequalities, parity has materialized in the almost equal representation of men and women in Congress.

Can we be satisfied with these changes? No. Laws do not by themselves modify practices and mentalities; Although they affect the political and social organization, they cannot fundamentally transform them if they are not fulfilled, if authoritarian and excluding tendencies persist or worsen.

The most obvious contrast between the law and reality is the growing violence against women and girls that limits their opportunities for development and growth. With an average of eleven women murdered a day, Mexico is one of the most hostile countries for women. Added to this offense is workplace and street harassment, sexual violence, rampant insecurity, the threat of trafficking and disappearance, and now the legalization of wombs for rent, a practice that can aggravate the objectification and exploitation of female bodies. .

This violence is not only derived from machismo that reproduces inequalities at home and at school. The justice system, permeated by corruption, lacking sufficient resources, and therefore inefficient, is incapable of rendering justice to women and girls. It not only leaves them out in the open, it revictimizes them. This is the case of mothers who report sexual harassment by the father against their daughters and vicarious violence (abuse and manipulation of sons and daughters to take revenge on the mother). Not only do they find no support, they are in turn denounced by the aggressors with the complicity of MPs and judges, especially when the accused have political or economic power.

The greater participation of women in legislatures, on the other hand, implies the recognition of political equality but does not guarantee the substantive equality of the majority. The result of feminist struggles and political agreements, parity has brought to power women who do not always respond to the demands and needs of precarious or violated women, but rather to their desire for power, to patriarchal mandates – from political bosses or religious or interest groups. Being a woman is not the same as being a feminist, but it never ceases to surprise and outrage that, as in this government, there are self-styled “feminists” who tolerate official misogynist discourse, remain silent in the face of stigmatization by feminist groups, vote for militarization or set up their own careers. politics about their identity as “women” and for this they try to manipulate, like the patriarchy, others.

We cannot demand legislators, officials and justice agents to behave as feminists, plurality is the key to democracy. We can document that the parity that many presume as the great achievement of Mexican women has not served to do justice to girls and women who daily face violence and inequality. This continues to be the great slope of our precarious democracy.