The Limitations of Symbolic Representation

Mexico has faced a historical and revolutionary change the past few years. First with the introduction of the widely popular leftist National Regeneration Movement or MORENA. A party calling for drastic social change. As the founder of the party leaves office, he is followed by his protege, Claudia Sheinbaum who will be the first female president in Mexican history. It is sufficient to say that Mexico's political scene is the most progressive it has ever been. Despite this new, progressive government, the astonishingly high rates of homicide have not declined in the past 20 years. Mexico has been the scene of one of the deadliest femicides across America even with its new progressive, woman positive government. 

            Mexico currently has seven registered political parties but only four of those have had considerable success and influence in the past few years. The National Action Party (PAN) is the oldest of these parties. PAN is a Christian, liberal center-right leaning party with the second greatest number of representatives. Their politics are closely intertwined with the idea of “Christian Democracy” adopting either leftist or right-wing policy based on the issue at hand, though their social policy typically has a more conservative stance, including the rejection of same sex marriage and the rejection of emergency contraception. Up until 2014 the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was the most popular party with overwhelming support that upheld its dominance and power for the 71 years after its foundation. Their official political ideology is one of constitutionalism and Revolutionary nationalism, but it is a party representing a broad spectrum of beliefs, maintaining what is called a “broad tent” to appeal to the masses. The PAN party and the PRI party along with the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) have created a coalition to oppose the newest, and most popular party, MORENA. The MORENA party was founded in 2014 by Mexico's current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) as defection from the Labor party to establish a farther left leaning party. Since this party is the newest and has only won top positions of power in 2018, when AMLO became president, it has had the least time to address the problem of Mexico's femicide, though this party has had a tremulous reputation with addressing the issue.

            Mexico's femicide is not a new epidemic. It has been prevalent throughout many eras of different political parties in power. From 2015 to 2021 there was an uptick of 135% of the number of recognized genders based violent murders. This sudden increase is unbelievable, but there is an explanation for it. It is not that killings went from 400 annually to 1200, it is that more of these murders are specifically being recognized as gender-based killings. There is a continuing tendency to hesitate in calling these killings gender based, though their existence has been widely recognized since the 1990’s when in just the city of Juarez there was a baffling 370 women and girls murdered in a single year. Femicide was first introduced to the Mexican penal code in 2012. A murder is considered a femicide when one of seven criteria is met: sexual violence prior or after the murder; an intimate/affectionate relationship between the assailant and the victim; or if the body is displayed in public. But even when these criteria are met, judicial systems are slow to label femicides as such. 1 in 5 murders of young women are in the household, compared to a 1 in 13 for men. These murders are not necessarily part of a systemized killing of women, nor are they as heavily intertwined with the organized crime responsible for the deaths of young men in Mexico. They are more so a result of the failure of the justice system in Mexico. Reported incidents of intimate partner violence are often lost by the police, and few times is a gender crime specialist included in the trying of these cases. And yet during all of this, Mexico has ranked third in most women in the National cabinet among Latin American nations and has implemented a “Gender parity in everything” constitutional mandate that has had huge success. This success can be traced back to the MORENA party, that has placed female candidates in states outside of Mexico’s power centers but ultimately win their states with the buzz of their MORENA candidacy. In 2018, women won half the seats of Mexico’s congress, making Mexico the world leader in government parity. All this while Mexico has one of the highest levels of gendered violence in the American continents.

            The irony of Mexico’s shattering of political glass ceilings coinciding with women feeling increasingly unsafe walking the street of their home is only enhanced with the election of Mexico’s first female president. Claudia Sheinbaum of the MORENA party has won a historic election and has boldly proclaimed her time as president will be one of “feminism with a ‘social’ approach”. Her plans include the elevation of gender equality to the constitutional level and the eradication of gender violence. Sheinbaum is the protégé of her predecessor AMLO. During AMLO’s time in office he has received criticism for his downplaying of the femicide in his country. He often boasted of how rates of murder have gone down and are sometimes exaggerated by his opposition to tarnish his success. Rates of the murder of women did not see substantial decline during his presidency, and even still, many gender motivate acts of murder are not labeled as such. Sheinbaum’s policy is practically an extension of her mentors and for this reason may are skeptical of her commitment to the cause. Sheinbaum has not been a staunch advocate for the protection of women and has even actively dismissed and reputed demonstrations of protest made by the women of Mexico. During her time as governor of Mexico City, there were many political demonstrations that Sheinbaum would claim got violent and in her reproach of these “violent” demonstration, she would discredit the cause.

            Before we celebrate the historic first of having female presidents, and the immense success of government parity in Mexico, we must think about what is happening outside the sphere of government. Most of these murders happen with intimate partners, even in intimate settings, making them even more difficult for the arms of justice to reach. What do all these female government representatives mean if 10 women are still being murdered daily? The Government must be making every effort to recognize these gender motivated acts of violence and bringing the perpetrators to justice. The historical win of Claudia Sheinbaum is not enough. The women of Mexico need more than a symbol, more than a performance of feminism. The MORENA party was founded on the separation of performance of alliance for the working class to real and drastic change. That kind of progressiveness is required for the safety of women as well.