Claudia Sheinbaum and the historic challenge of being the first female president of Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first president of Mexico in the more than 200 years of the history of the republic, a fact of great symbolic relevance in a country that faces important challenges of sexist violence.

“Mexico is ready for a president, for an astronaut, for an engineer. Mexican women have been ready for a long time,” she has repeatedly stated.

She will thus become a pioneer in the position in Mexico, a fact of great symbolic relevance and which she has described as a sign that “it is time for transformative women” in the country, while maintaining it as a campaign and government platform, which with she, “we all arrived.”

However, aware of the historical fact, he has insisted on the importance of delivering results, ensuring that his Government will be “feminist with a social focus.”

“It cannot be that the first woman president is only a symbol,” he recently indicated at a press conference.

Sheinbaum, 62 years old, who assumes power next Tuesday, October 1, receives a country with challenges of sexist violence that has persisted in the outgoing Government, which leaves an average of 9 to 10 women murdered a day, and increases in violence family and other gender crimes.

However, violence continues to mark the major pending issues in the gender agenda, which Sheinbaum has committed to addressing with the creation of a Women’s Secretariat.

The Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) concludes with an average of 9.5 homicides of women per day, of which between 2 and 3 were classified as femicides, a figure similar to the end of the previous six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto (2015-2018), according to the latest report from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP).

Although López Obrador has boasted a decrease in femicides, which Sheinbaum has celebrated, the reality is that the decrease in the incidence of crime is minimal and has not been sustained over the last six years.

It is urgent to name the violence

Furthermore, in other crimes such as family violence, gender violence, human trafficking and rape, the increase is notable, according to the SESNSP report, which since 2015 has been collecting complaints related to violence against women.

From January to August 2024 alone, according to the latest report published in September, there were 190,096 reports of family violence, 4,471 of gender violence, and 14,508 of rape, when in all of 2018 180,185, 2,255 and 15,322 were recorded, respectively.

Researcher Mónica Mendoza, an expert in political communication, explained to EFE that the López Obrador Government constructed a “narrative that the incidence of feminicide was decreasing,” by adding it or classifying it as intentional homicide.

However, the member of the Auna organization warned of the increase in other indicators, such as the viciousness of the crimes and the age of the victims, who are increasingly younger, in addition to the fact that there is an under-reporting of cases in various crimes against women. women.

“We are stuck in the number of femicides, but the type of crime that has escalated with brutality, that is out of control, is that of missing women and girls (…) that only tells you about trafficking,” Mendoza warned.

The director of the National Network of Shelters, Wendy Figueroa, agreed on the importance of making this reality visible, since “what is not named does not exist” and pointed out that the NGO has identified “an increase in the care provided and in the number of women and children accompanied from 2019 to date, with an average increase of 12% annually.”

Figueroa highlighted that “especially in this six-year term, the institutions in charge of addressing gender violence were underfunded, which limits their ability to offer effective support to victims or to implement broad awareness and education campaigns.”

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