unbroken machismo: Sexual assault tests Mexico’s progress

When Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as Mexico’s first female president, many voters hoped the historic moment would mark the beginning of the end of the machismo culture that has long permeated Mexican society.

Thirteen months later, Sheinbaum was groped on the street by a constituent — a stark reminder that, despite her efforts, Mexico still has far to go to ensure equality and safety for women.

The assault on Tuesday has ignited a national conversation about harassment, abuse and violence that women continue to face. Across television, social media and homes, women expressed indignation that not even the president was safe — and resignation that nothing would change.

Sheinbaum voiced the question many were asking: “If this can happen to the president, what’s going to happen to all the young women and women across our country?”

For many Mexican women, the attack — a man trying to kiss the president and put his hands on her chest — was an all-too-familiar story. Mexico has a long history of machismo, a culture that teaches men they are entitled to control women and a system that reinforces inequality and violence, according to activists and female politicians.

On the streets of Mexico City, many women could quickly recall frightening encounters — being followed, groped, or harassed — and said they did not trust police to act. Even though sexual harassment is a crime in the capital, women said officers often refused to file a complaint unless the victim knew her attacker’s name. Filing reports was seen as pointless; even when complaints were made, full investigations or arrests were rare — unlike in Sheinbaum’s case.

That distrust extends nationwide. “There was no one to defend me,” said Ivett Jijon, 27, recalling when a man put his hand in her blouse at a bus stop in Cuernavaca when she was 18. “I felt afraid and helpless. It bothered me that there was nothing I could do.”

Sheinbaum entered office promising to make the country safer and more equal for women. Earlier this year, she said her movement was “the only one” capable of improving women’s rights in Mexico. From a policy standpoint, she has made tangible progress.

She created a new pension program for women, championed a constitutional amendment to guarantee equal pay, and began developing a national care system for children, older citizens and the disabled — to ease the burden on women caregivers.

Her administration has also required security and justice institutions to recognise gender as a factor in crime and mandated specialised prosecutor’s offices for femicides — murders of women based on gender.

“No more violence against women,” Sheinbaum declared in March. “No more femicide, no more beatings, no more abuse, no more violent words against Mexican women.”

On Thursday, responding to her own assault, Sheinbaum unveiled a new national initiative against sexual abuse. The plan includes making sexual abuse a punishable crime in every Mexican state, training prosecutors and judges on gender-based crimes, launching a public campaign encouraging women to report abuse, and creating a simpler reporting process.

But data suggests that changing entrenched social dynamics remains an uphill battle.

Femicides — as defined by Mexican authorities — are projected to reach a three-year low this year, with 513 cases reported through September. Still, Mexican women are killed at higher rates than the global average. Nonlethal violence, meanwhile, has barely declined: emergency calls for domestic violence in September totalled 45,500, nearly identical to the previous year. Reported crimes against women dropped only 2% to 23,100.

For many, the assault on the president underscores how little has changed.

“Even if she is the most powerful woman in this country, she is still subject to being sexualized and victimised,” said Mónica Tapia, a social policy expert who leads a group training women for political leadership. “A citizen, with no respect for her presidential status or anything else, can see her as a woman he is entitled to touch and defy.”

To many women, Sheinbaum’s experience is emblematic of their own daily fears — and of a culture that remains deeply resistant to change.

@The New York Times