A local perspective on Mexico’s first female president

In the days since Mexico elected their first female president – on June 2nd – gender in politics has been at the forefront conversations across the country.

Claudia Sheinbaum won in a landslide victory with almost 60 percent of the vote.

We spoke with CU Boulder professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Sheinbaums election and what that could mean for Mexico and the U.S.

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Transcript:

Jackie Sedley: On June 2nd, earlier this week, Mexico elected its first female president. Claudia Sheinbaum won in a landslide victory, with almost 60 percent of the vote. KGNU’s Greta Kerkhoff spoke with Professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Sheinbaum’s election.

Dr. Bayard de Volo is a professor of women and gender studies at CU Boulder with a PhD in political science. Her regional area of specialization is Latin America.

Greta Kerkhoff: So starting off, what do you think contributed to Claudia Sheinbaum’s election as the first female president of Mexico, especially as a more progressive candidate?

Lorraine Bayard de Volo: Well, the main thing that contributed to it is that she is coming on the heels of a very popular outgoing president from the same party. And so, and she’s worked with his, in his administration and kind of rose to some political prominence through that route. So just that factor is key. As a woman, it’s not really clear.

I mean, nothing really stands out particularly for her, but of course she was running against somebody, another woman, so Xóchitl Gálvez um, who came in second, and then there was a third candidate who ran third in those elections. In generally, Politically, Mexico has adopted a principle of gender parity, and that means ensuring that women are elected in roughly equal numbers to men in their legislature. So the, the Mexican Supreme Court, um, is part of that gender parity initiative. And there’s 11 ministers and now five of those 11 are women. And the last four ministers that have been appointed to the Mexican Supreme Court have been women, and the president of the Mexican Supreme Court is a woman.

And, uh, since about 2021, the Mexican Supreme Court has been, has, it’s had two separate rulings that have liberalized abortion rights in Mexico. Um, particularly, it’s decriminalized abortion and legalized it at the federal level. So individual states still have laws against, many individual states within Mexico still have laws against it, but, uh, federally it’s permitted within the first trimester. So Mexico has had this unprecedented move towards adopting the principle of gender parity within its political systems at a variety of levels at the same time that, uh, the United States For example, with abortion, it’s been moving in a very different direction.

Kerkhoff: Totally. And along those lines, what do you think this race means for free elections? Specifically, in terms of the U. S., what can the U. S. and Colorado take away from this election?

Bayard de Volo: This election, and I think upcoming presidency, will be yet one more example of women’s capacity for national leadership, which, of course, the United States has not yet achieved.

But it also is another example of the specific challenges that women political figures face around the world, not only in the United States, but just comparatively across countries. There’s this process by which many women as national leaders or high profile political figures have faced what in political science is often called this double bind. Where women need to somehow take on these qualities of leadership that are so closely tied with what is understood as masculinity or masculine qualities.

So an effective leader is strong, they’re capable, they’re courageous, they’re decisive, they’re assertive. And so, when a woman tries to perform those qualities as a national leader, it can be very difficult to successfully perform those qualities without also getting into a critique of of her presidency as being overly masculine or her being unfeminine and being criticized in that way.

And that critique of a woman in power as being unfeminine is a very effective critique politically. And so it can prove, it can prove they’re undoing, and it can really be a lag on their effectiveness. And so that is, it’s going to, we’ll have to see how Sheinbaum does in terms of navigating that double bind. But it will be just another example that we can all learn from in terms of how women can gain and hold on to power in elected positions, you know, navigating that double bind.

Kerkhoff: Yeah, that’s interesting. I can think of a lot of, Presidents or political figures just in the U. S. alone that have probably suffered that same scrutiny and those double standards. In terms of her time in office, as being a woman and with the state of Mexico right now, what sort of challenges might she face?

Bayard de Volo: Well, within Mexico, there’s a major concern for violence. Kind of everyday interpersonal criminal violence as it’s associated with the drug cartels, for example, but also just more criminal elements in general. And so she will have a lot of pressure on her to respond to that. Uh, but Mexico has seen the emergence, kind of in this sustained movement, uh, that the women’s movement mobilized particularly against what’s called femicide. And femicide is the killing of women because they are women. And so Sheinbaum’s predecessor, uh, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been very much criticized by the women’s movement in Mexico for not, uh, doing enough to end femicide in that country.

And he’s even been rather antagonistic with that movement. So even though he in many ways is understood as being of the left, he has had a very fractious relationship with mobilized women and feminists. And so we’ll have to see how Sheinbaum interacts with and responds to the Mexican women’s movements calls for this end of violence against women.

Kerkhoff: Yeah, Sheinbaum has proposed creating a legal definition for femicide in order to properly address that violence against women that you mentioned. I believe in Mexico it’s around 10 women and girls murdered every day. What can you say about the history of violence against women in this region, and why do you think the numbers in this region are so high?

Bayard de Volo: That is a question that very few people have felt like they’ve been able to answer for it with any satisfaction. I think it’s, it’s, it’s a whole number of different factors coming in. And part of it is, well, the drug trade mixes in with all that. And it’s one of the few ways that, young men in particular have as a path for status in many communities within Mexico, particularly if they aren’t getting or pursuing an education and come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

And so joining a cartel, joining a gang, is a way of achieving status that equates masculinity in many ways with kind of a very assertive, aggressive, and even violent style. And so I think women have been on the losing end of that dynamic. Uh, but there’s many other factors going on as well. Part of it is a recognition of femicide for what it is.

Women are increasingly understanding that there is this phenomenon of femicide, and are increasingly probably more likely to report it to authorities or at least have it recorded to some degree. And so the numbers are growing, but part of it might be simply people feeling more compelled to have a disappearance or a murder recorded as a femicide.

And that’s a small comfort, but it might. Help bring more needed attention to finally trying to find some way of combating this. Other elements that, that contribute to femicide have to do with a lot of the internal migration going on within Mexico as people move away from their traditional communities, um, looking for work, they lose a lot of their support network that can leave them more vulnerable. And give them fewer options for avoiding being able to get out of dangerous relationships or otherwise avoid violence.

Kerkhoff: Quickly, I do want to mention on the topic of violence, there were 37 documented assassinations of political candidates before this election. What do you think President Sheinbaum can do to address political violence? What has she spoken about in terms of her approach to tackling the violence in Mexico?

Bayard de Volo: She’s certainly has tried to distance herself from this approach that her predecessor had, which was called basically, I forget what it was called exactly, but hugs, not bullets or something like that. I don’t remember, but It’s such an intractable problem.

She is trying to create more and more autonomous security forces that separate themselves from drug cartels, but yeah, her success remains to be seen.

Kerkhoff: Going back to the women’s movement that’s going on there right now, what has from your perspective, the reaction of women in Mexico been to this election, how do you think that this is going to change or propel the movement?

Bayard de Volo: I think that a lot of outsiders might expect that having a woman president will really maybe either address the women’s movement’s demands in some fashion, or if Sheinbaum is not able to find a means of, of collaborating with this important movement, they might see it as, as a way of undermining the women’s movement.

But I think that from what I’ve seen and heard, the women’s movement doesn’t hold out too much promise that she will go much further than the previous president, Lopez Obrador, did, uh, but are waiting to be proven wrong. I don’t expect them to pull punches or be less forceful in their demands in the face of a woman president.

Kerkhoff: And lastly, I want to kind of wrap up going back to how the U. S. is still yet to elect its first female president. And once again, this might be something that does not have a straightforward answer whatsoever. But from your research, what do you think are some reasons that the U. S. is yet to elect its first female president?

Bayard de Volo: Well, I think that it does have a lot, going back to how much of the U. S. public understands leadership, and leadership qualities, and, and how difficult it can be for women candidates to appear to be a potentially effective leader while not losing their femininity. I think that in Latin America, to me, it seems like there’s a little more leeway for women to be able to emphasize their femininity without having their intelligence immediately become in question. And I think that in the U. S., women aren’t given that grace. It’s so easy for women in the United States to be criticized as either too feminine or not feminine enough.

Sedley: Once again, that was KGNU’s Greta Kirchhoff speaking with Professor Lorraine Bayard de Volo about Claudia Sheinbaum’s election in Mexico. She is the first female president in Mexico’s history.