Women in Politics in Mexico (original) (raw)
Women and politics in Mexico and Brazil
Seqüência: Estudos Jurídicos e Políticos, 2020
Despite advances in recognition of women’s rights, they are still victims of everyday violence. National and international regulations on gender equality and the promotion of female political participation had a low impact on the underrepresentation of this minority. Law produced without a share of citizenship lacks democratic legitimacy. Mexico and Brazil have a similar history of excluding women from the public sphere, but they currently have different strategies to overcome this democratic deficit. The article, with a descriptive methodology, presents the history and the present situation in both countries. We conclude that there are different ways to increase the representation of women in politics, but parity is a demand for justice.
International Feminist Journal of Politics , 2023
Este artículo evalúa la experiencia de los últimos 30 años de reformas de cuotas de género en América Latina desde el marco teórico clásico de las dos rutas: la incremental y la vía rápida. Al enfocarnos en los continuos esfuerzos de las mujeres políticas para transformar leyes de cuotas de género relativamente débiles en criterios para aplicar la paridad plenamente, argumentamos que la mayoría de los países que siguieron la “vía rápida” evolucionaron en una ruta constante. La ruta constante se desarrolla a partir de la conceptualización de la vía rápida de Drude Dahlerup y Lenita Freidenvall. Plantea que los países dependen de reformas constantes a la legislación sobre cuotas de género y muestra cómo la innovación en el diseño de las cuotas de género eleva continuamente el nivel de lo que constituye un diseño de cuota “fuerte,” o bien, leyes paritarias. Como evidencia de esta ruta analizamos el caso de México, enfocándonos en la reforma de 2014 de paridad en candidaturas legislativas federales y locales y, en 2019, la “paridad en todo,” es decir, la paridad en cargos ejecutivos, legislativos y judiciales.
Political Participation and Gender Violence in Mexico, CERVA Daniela.docx
This work studies the relationship of women and politics within the framework of the Mexican law on quotas, stressing gender political violence as an explanatory variable of women political underrepresentation. Apart from basic information resulting from indepth interviews and discussion groups, data from the last federal election analyzed, and studies on women and political parties in Mexico are reviewed from a critical angle. Research outcomes reveal that the existing dynamics within the political partiesunderstood as organizations that reproduce traditional gender patterns-represent a crucial variable to explain the peculiarities of the process through which women can have access to candidatures, and explain their experiences of discrimination, harassment, and violence related to campaigns and parliamentary performance. Also, it is claimed that the implementation of regulatory frameworks aimed at promoting women participation in parliaments depends on the prevailing political party culture in Mexico. 2 The legislation of political and electoral rights for women, altogether with the fulfillment of the quota in Mexico set a primordial ground that explains the increase of elected women in the past elections of 2012. The reach of this process in the position and condition of women reflects an important increase of female deputies. The number of seats went from 142 (28%) in 2009 to 184 (37%) in the current legislation. In the case of female senators, it went from 30 (24%) to 42 (33%).
Women in Mexican Subnational Legislatures
Latin American Societies, 2022
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Who represents women in Mexico? Critical actors in times of congressional gender parity
Política. Revista de Ciencia Política
There is no sufficient evidence regarding the relationship between descriptive and women’s substantive representation in the Mexican Congress. This research asks, what characteristics do lawmakers who promote the rights and interests of women share? Critical actors theory calls for research to emphasize agents over numbers. Thus, information about the identity of sponsoring deputies was studied for the LXIII and LXIV Congresses. Results show that individual actors, mostly female legislators, promote women’s representation. Some have seniority, but most have no experience as elected officials, nor as part of the Congressional leadership. This suggests that actors who have the political will to promote women's issues have the least power to do so, which, in turn, undermines the power of a critical mass.
Gender-Based Political Violence in Mexico: A Complex Assignment
Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2020
This article analyzes the phenomenon of gender-based political violence in Mexico, which has impacted and affected the political participation of women in the country, which began in the 19th century, and which represents not only an existing problem, but rooted and recurring. Women in Mexican politics have been historically invisible and have been limited in the exercise of their political-electoral rights due to various social, cultural, partisan, structural, institutional circumstances, among others, that have favored the existence of a considerable and very marked gap with respect to men in this area. Hence the importance of the issue being addressed and eradicated, since it is a practice that restricts women and complicates their full development. In this work, political violence is conceptualized, and among other points, it is analyzed how it is presented, how it can be detected, what are the behaviors that it implies, some cases that show it, what are the rights of the victims and what institutions, instances , organizations, pacts, protocols, conventions and laws, both national and international, provide attention, channeling and solution to various aspects related to political violence against women on the basis of gender and some of the actions that have been taken, aimed at attend to it, sanction it, and prevent it. A cross-sectional documentary investigation was carried out to analyze the historical development of political violence up to the conditions in which it is currently manifested in Mexico.
This chapter begins with a discussion of causes, the factors that shape women's representation within and by political parties. Using 2009 data from all major parties in eighteen Latin American countries, the chapter presents data on women's representation within parties (as leaders and within women's wings) and by parties (as candidates and officeholders). Moreover, the chapter discusses how women's descriptive representation is shaped by parties' candidate selection procedures, including voluntary party-based gender quotas and legislated national quotas, which alter these nomination procedures. The chapter then analyzes women's substantive representation through parties, drawing on evidence from expert surveys, party manifestos, and public opinion data concerning party attachments. Here we evaluate the extent to which parties advocate for women's issues and employ strategies aimed at incorporating women's concerns in the political process. The findings suggest that few Latin American parties prioritize or even maintain organizational ties to women's groups, and women's concerns rarely figure prominently in party platforms. We also consider the extent to which and mechanisms through which women connect to political parties, finding that women are much less likely to identify with parties than men, even after controlling for a wide array of factors that might be expected to contribute to this gap. The chapter concludes by discussing the challenges women face regarding their full incorporation by and within political parties and suggesting some steps parties might take to promote women's representation.
Women, Politics and Democratic Prospects in Latin America
2004
Over the last decade, Latin America has witnessed unprecedented gains of more than 50 percent in the number of women in power. This paper explains these gains and discusses factors that fuel and help forecast the continuing growth in women's political participation. The authors also explore the possible implications of this growth for the future conduct of democracy and the barriers women must overcome so that their share in the political ranks gets closer to their share in the population. This paper is part of PROLEAD's effort to promote women's leadership, political participation and representation in the Latin American and Caribbean region. An IDB initiative, PROLEAD awards grants to organizations that promote women's political participation, provides capacity-building workshops to women and organizations and furthers research and knowledge in the area. For additional information on the program's activities, please visit PROLEAD´s website at www.iadb.org/sds/prolead. We hope this paper will contribute to a further understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced in building democracy for all, and to the Bank's policy dialogues with borrowing member countries.
Transitioning from Descriptive to Substantive Representation: a Study of the Mexican Congress
Acta Politologica, 2020
The increasing number of women in the Mexican Congress could lead us to expect that women’s interests are being better represented. However, there is no sufficient recent evidence on a correlation between a more robust descriptive representation and women’s substantive representation in Mexico. Has the increase in the number of women led to greater focus on women’s issues? Are the contents of bills sponsored in fact representing women? The objective of this paper is to address the links between women´s increasing descriptive representation and the substantive representation of this group. To this end, a sample of legislative bills of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, authored between 2015 and 2019, are assessed. Evidence points towards a change in the legislative work, embracing women´s issues, as more women are elected. Issues raised include those related to gender violence, including various forms of classification of crimes. They also highlight the reforms that push parity in the composition of various governing bodies, including the Supreme Court of Justice. Legislation is pushing to close the gender pay gap, and to mandate government institutions to include a gender perspective in all of their processes. But even if the substantive representation of some types of women has improved, major breakthroughs through legislation are seldom achieved due to conservative conceptualizations of women’s roles.
COLLADO FERNÁNDEZ, Esther: "Ellas, votantes contra la democracia: modelos de participación política femenina desde la ultraderecha española en la Segunda República", La Historia, lost in translation? Actas del XIII Congreso de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2017, pp. 3231-3241 Resumen: La Constitución de 1931 concedió a las mujeres el derecho al voto, obligando a todos los partidos políticos a readaptar sus estrategias para atraer a las potenciales votantes. Esta obligación fue ineludible incluso para aquellos partidos manifiestamente contrarios al liberalismo, tradicionalistas y monárquicos de la ultraderecha española, que sin embargo supieron hacer de la necesidad virtud. En este contexto nace Ellas, semanario de las mujeres españolas, revista femenina dirigida por José María Pemán, que trataría de movilizar a las mujeres en nombre de la religión, la familia y la patria sin dejar nunca de señalar su repulsa y el carácter excepcional de su participación política, utilizando a su conveniencia y discreción las nuevas herramientas que la naciente cultura política ponía a su servicio resignificándolas al mismo tiempo. Abstract: Constitution of 1931 gave to the women the right of suffrage forcing all political parties to re-adapt their strategies to attract potential voters. This obligation was unavoidable even for those parties against liberalism, traditionalists and monarchists of the Spanish extreme right, who nevertheless, knew how to make a virtue of necessity. In this context Ellas, semanario de las mujeres española , was born. A women's magazine ran by José María Pemán, which would try to mobilize women in the name of religion, family and homeland without stop pointing their rejection and the exceptional nature of women's political participation, using at their convenience the new tools that the new political culture puts at their service and making at the same time a reappropriation of them.