AMLO and Mexican women’s fight for equality

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Last July, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) issued its recommendations for the Mexican
State.

It expressed concern about delays in fundamental issues such as tackling
the increase in gender based violence and defusing machista culture, as well as lifting the obstacles to accessing
justice with a gender sentive perspective.

It stated, in addition, that in
Mexico there are no strategies for the economic, labour and educational
empowerment of low-income, rural, indigenous and disabled women.

The document ends
by denouncing the lack of law and protocol harmonization on abortion, and the
absence of guarantees on access to rights by migrant women, female asylum
seekers and refugees.

Mexico has historically been an unequal country. Inequalities have a direct
impact on the opportunity gap between men and women, and a decisive influence on
gender based violence.

Almost 7 out of 10 women in Mexico have suffered emotional and sexual violence, and the number of women killed in 2016 was the highest in the last 27 years (on average, 8 women each day).

There is no denying the figures: according to recorded data,
almost 7 out of 10 women in Mexico have suffered emotional and sexual violence,
and the number of women killed in 2016 was the highest in the last 27 years (on
average, 8 women each day).

However, out of the total of women who suffered
violence, a full 88.4% did not request institutional support or file a
complaint, for they did not consider it a relevant issue, feared the consequences
of doing so, did not know where to report and how to do it, or thought that
they would not be believed and would even be blamed for it.

On the other hand,
sexual violence in Mexico also has a direct impact on forced maternity: between
2009 and 2016, 111,413 complaints were filed for rape – in sharp contrast with
the data reported by the public health system, according to which only 63 legal
rape-related abortions were performed in the very same period. 

The machista narrative and
sexist dynamics have also wreaked havoc on the construction and maintenance of gender
stereotypes and roles: in 2016, the
activity to which Mexican women devoted most of their time was food-related
services (32.2% of their time), while the activity through which they generated
the highest economic value was the "care and support" services to household
members (on average, the housework and care tasks that each woman contributed
amounted to 2741 dollars, as opposed to men’s 999 dollars).

In other words,
although progress has certainly been made in incorporating women into the labour
market, this has been accompanied by an imbalance in the distribution of
household tasks.

The rate of economic participation decreases, though, when children
come into the picture: if the number of children is between 3 and 5, the
participation rate falls below the national average (42%), and goes down to 24%
if there are 6 or more children.

As for economic distribution and development opportunities – education
and employment namely – Mexico faces huge challenges. For example, the
percentage of men who earn more than two and up to five times the minimum wage
is 38.1%, whereas the percentage of women is 25.8%.

Similarly, out of the over
one million students aged 18-20 who finished high school and did not go on to
higher education in 2013, 41% were men and 59% women.

The main reason for quitting
was economic: they simply did not have enough money to pay for further
education. The data indicates that 21.6% of those who defected for economic
reasons were women, while the percentage of men was 14.5%.

Poverty and marginalization are also exacerbated in the case of women in rural areas. 69% of men employed as agricultural workers are self-employed, while the percentage is 57% for women.

Poverty and
marginalization are also exacerbated in the case of women in rural areas. 69%
of men employed as agricultural workers are self-employed, while the percentage
is 57% for women.

Women rural workers often carry out subordinate tasks, have
lower incomes and, in many cases, do not receive any payment for their work.

More women in political posts,
but few proposals to reduce the gender gap.

Given this situation, the obvious question is: will equal quotas in the
government have a positive effect on reducing the country's gender gap? The
truth is that Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his team have said very little
about this.

During the election campaign, AMLO questioned the Social Encounter
Party (PES) joining his Together We Will Make History coalition, since the
former’s conservative outlook – the PES defines itself as the family party –
contrasted with the alleged leftist values of AMLO’s campaign.

Since then, the
only document with specific proposals on gender is the so-called Femsplaining, a document intended to start
a dialogue on the subject.

The proposals contained in this document address
"conjunctural" issues facing the country, but a brief analysis shows
that it does not include transformative measures that would contribute to the
construction of a feminist and gender agenda.

The document proposes seven basic axes: education and culture, economic
independence and labor inclusion, harassment and violence, feminization of
poverty, reproductive health, violence and access to justice, and public
administration with a gendered perspective.

Most of the proposals, however,
focus on achieving material equality over substantive equality. That is, few of
them are aimed at transforming the structural conditions that determine unequal
access to women's rights.

There is no mention of inclusion strategies with a real gender perspective such as, for example, the distribution of housework between men and women, shared parenting, or extensive paternity leave.

Most of the document deals with issues such as the
granting of scholarships, salary increases, the construction of productive
centers in marginalized urban areas and the opening of more nurseries and
children's rooms, but there is no mention of inclusion strategies with a real
gender perspective such as, for example, the distribution of housework between
men and women, shared parenting, extensive paternity leave, or the designing of
new masculinity-building programs for the reduction and prevention of gender
violence. 

It is also surprising that the document does not address two issues of the
utmost importance for the real protection, respect and guarantee of women's
rights: the harmonization of laws on abortion, and specific strategies for the
recognition and development of indigenous and rural women.

Regarding the former,
there is only a brief mention of the possibility of holding a popular
consultation on the issue.

Regarding the latter, even though AMLO has appointed
two women to head the Office of Rural Development and the Ministry of the
Interior, the lack of concrete proposals for indigenous and rural women has effectively
ensured their invisibility.

Hope may still be on the cards however. The entry of women into the
public space and their political representation is undoubtedly something to
celebrate, but the future president’s government must consider the various
faces of social oppression that Mexican women experience, and design and
implement policies and institutional capacities that can have a real impact on
the transformation of their lives.

Proposals must not only address economic redistribution
between men and women, but also prioritize the participation of men in the
cultural and symbolic shift away from the prevailing machista discourse and in generating strategies that guarantee and
protect women’s rights.

This article is published in
the framework of our editorial alliance with Revista Nueva Sociedad. See the original here.