14 Mar 25 | Mexico and the global fight for women’s rights
Also in this edition: Migrants, most important foreign investors. Attack on freedom of speech in the US. A lament for Mexican soccer.
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Now or in three centuries?
No country has achieved gender equality, and the UN warns that if we don't act now, it will take another 300 years to reach that goal. But the arrival of a progressive woman as president of Mexico, driven by a movement demanding constitutional changes and that 50 percent of legislators be women, is a bright spot in a world where other countries are not only not advancing, but actually moving backwards.
This month, millions of women and their allies around the world celebrated International Women's Day with protests and demands for gender equality. Without gender equality, there is no sustainable development. Without equality, all kinds of injustices continue; for example, Lourdes Colinas, the National Officer for UN Women Mexico, warns that without greater efforts toward gender equality it will take 137 years to eradicate extreme poverty among women globally. ▶️ VIDEO
“Women will be in the streets as long as we continue to suffer from macho violence, as we have until now, generation after generation,” declared President Claudia Sheinbaum. Her government has also launched several concrete initiatives: in January, the president announced the creation of Centers for Education and Child Care which will provide early learning for children of working mothers and fathers, particularly maquiladora employees; the government has also established a preference to women in a program for home ownership and has pledged to recognize agrarian rights for at least 150 thousand women. ▶️ VIDEO
But beyond these important projects, writes Magdalena Gómez, what will be the strategy to end femicide and violence? The protesters emphasize the fact that only 0.6 percent of crimes against women are resolved, resulting in a rate of 99% impunity. Faced with this government failure, the mothers searching for their loved ones have taken on the work of investigation, demanding that judges take action, and picking up the collective call for the protection of these mothers.
Beyond the violence, in Mexico, 22 million women are excluded from the labor system and 17.7 million of them are excluded because they perform unpaid care work; Gabriela Rodríguez, technical secretary of Conapo, offers a detailed map of women workers in Mexico. The younger generations are more prepared to not tolerate sexual harassment in companies, and according to one analysis, sexual harrassment is not as accepted as it used to be. And this is not only in the business world. The Collective of Women in Music and the International Coordinator of Women in the Arts filed a formal protest, and demand that the president also sanction officials who have violated the rights of women artists.
In an editorial, La Jornada underscored the message that the movement for women's rights and equality expressed in the massive national mobilization on March 8: authorities at all branches and levels of government, as well as leaders of the private sector, churches, schools, and all institutions, must listen to women's cries for their right to live free from violence and with true equality, because the transformation of the country will never be complete if it excludes half of its inhabitants.
How the marches happened in Mexico. ▶️ VIDEO
The Quote
Faced with Trump's political repression, the Statue of Liberty in New York shamefully covers her face…
– Rayuela de La Jornada
In case you missed it
◻️ Women's perspectives on indigenous worlds. “The feminine condition has become the most expansive space for the struggles for freedom and the resistance movements that generate the new world many of us want to consolidate,” states the new issue of the Ojarasca supplement in La Jornada, which includes collaborations from women thinkers and authors.
◻️ The most important foreign investors. The dollars sent to Mexico by Mexicans immigrants exceed those generated by the agri-food sector, foreign direct investment (FDI), oil sales abroad and the economic impact of international tourism.
◻️ The merry-go-round of Mexico-United States trade. The only constant of the Trump administration’s economic policy and the use of tariffs is uncertainty. For key sectors of the Mexican economy, the US market is essential. For example, 92.5 percent of beer exports go to the US, while for tequila, it is 82.3 percent, and for avocados 86.4 percent. At the same time, Mexico buys 40 percent of the corn exported by the US, and 30 percent of the milk it consumes. Trump insists on using his economic weapons to negotiate concessions from other countries like Mexico, but he is now facing a country united in defending itself against threats, and a president who has responded deftly to the maneuvers of her counterpart in Washington, argues Pedro Miguel.
◻️ Were there thousands of migrants? Jorge Durand seeks to identify floating populations in Mexico and the changes in their makeup: First, the country of origin of migrants going to the United States changed. In 2021, 43 percent of those apprehended were Mexicans, 38 percent were Central Americans and only 17 percent were from other places. Four years later, the category of other represents 61 percent; Mexicans, 23 percent and Central Americans, 16 percent.
◻️ Political repression and an attack on freedom of expression in the United States. An immigrant with US permanent residence is arrested for participating in protests at Columbia University against the genocide of Palestinians. It's the first of many, says the boss of the White House, as his administration launches an assault on freedom of expression.
◻️ The Zapatistas call on artists. The EZLN announced that it will convene a gathering of art and rebellion, adding that "you are allowed to curse the government of your choice. Of course, always with art. You can resort to minimalist forms like the now classic, unanimous, and globalized 'fuck Trump,' and/or its equivalents in your own languages, calendars, and geographies."
◻️ Lament for Mexican soccer. “Está de la patada (It sucks),” writes Hermann Bellinghausen about the national sport. “To put it simply: soccer is about playing beautifully and scoring goals, exactly what the current national game doesn’t offer.” It wasn’t always like that, but the immediate future isn’t encouraging as the World Cup approaches, which will be held in the three North American countries.
◻️ Sebastião Salgado: photography as a way of life.“Humankind, unfortunately, has a predatory attitude toward the Earth and an incredible sense of adaptation: this progressively leads us to use and consume more and more resources. The problem is: when will we realize it’s time to stop and begin to change?” asked Salgado, in a conversation previously unpublished in Spanish.
◻️ Teuchitlán, the horror
🎥 What we're watching
Ain't I a woman, by Sojourner Truth, performed by Kerry Washington.
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