page_title: Feminism in Mexico
section_title: Post-1990
hierarchical_section_title: Feminism in Mexico / History / Post-1990
caption_attribution_description: English: PWRDF staff members Jose Zarate and Simon Chambers stand in solidarity with staff and volunteers of the Women's Human Rights Centre in Ciudad Chihuahua, Mexico as they call for justice for the murders of Rubi and Marisela.
context_page_description: Feminism in Mexico is the philosophy and activity aimed at creating, defining, and protecting political, economic, cultural, and social equality in women's rights and opportunity for Mexican women. Rooted in liberal thought, the term feminism came into use in the late nineteenth-century Mexico and in common parlance among elites in the early twentieth century. The history of feminism in Mexico can be divided chronologically into a number of periods, with issues. For the conquest and colonial eras, some figures have been re-evaluated in the modern era and can be considered part of the history of feminism in Mexico. At independence in the early nineteenth century, there were demands that women be defined as citizens. The late nineteenth century saw the explicit development of feminism as an ideology. Liberalism advocated secular education of both girls and boys as part of a modernizing project and women entered the workforce as teachers. Those women were at the forefront of feminism, forming groups that critiqued existing treatment of women in the realm of legal status, access to education, and economic and political power.
context_section_description: The period beginning in 1990 marked a shift in the politics of Mexico which would open up Mexican democracy and see the presidency won in 2000 by the opposition National Action Party (PAN). State governorships were earlier taken by the PAN. As a new electoral law went into effect in 1997 the PRI lost control of the lower house followed by the PRI's historic loss of the presidency in 2000. The impact that end of the virtual one-party-rule would have on women in Mexico was an open question.  The year 1990 saw the launch of Debate Feminista (Feminist Debate), a publication founded by Marta Lamas, which aimed at connecting academic feminist theory with the practices of activists in the women's movement. Debate has become one of the most important journals in Latin America, printing articles written by both women and men.
  In 1991, there were a number of constitutional changes as Mexico sought to join the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. and Canada. The 1917 Constitution had strong anticlerical measures that restricted the role of the Catholic Church in Mexico. A major reform established freedom of religious belief, granted open practice of all religions, and was an opening for the Catholic Church to participate in politics. For the first time in the 20th century, established diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Vatican. Almost immediately, the Catholic church launched a campaign opposing family planning and a condom distribution program the Mexican government was sponsoring as part of an HIV/AIDS prevention program. In reaction, the feminist movement began studying pro-choice movements in France and the United States, to analyze how to direct the discourse in Mexico. In 1992 they formed the Grupo de Information en Reproduction Elegida (GIRE) (Information Group on Reproductive Choice). Transforming the discussion from whether one was for or against abortion to focus on who should decide was a pivotal change in forward-progress of the abortion debate in Mexico. In order the gauge the public perception, GIRE in conjunction with Gallup polling, completed national surveys in 1992, 1993 and 1994, which confirmed that over 75% of the population felt that the decision of family planning should belong to a woman and her partner.
  After 1997, when PRI lost control of the legislature, female activists and victims' relatives in Chihuahua convinced the state government to create special law enforcement divisions to address disappearances and deaths of women in Ciudad Juarez. Success in the state legislature led to a similar law at the national level, which also aimed at investigating and prosecution of Dirty War and narco-trafficking disappearances. By 2004 the violence toward women had escalated to the point that María Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos introduced the term femicide, originally coined in the United States, to Latin American audiences to refer to abductions, death and disappearances of women and girls which is allowed by the state and happens with impunity.
  In early August 2019, around 300 women in Mexico City gathered to protest two incidents of accused rape of a teenage girl by policemen, which had occurred within a few days of each other. Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, ally to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "infuriated feminist protesters by branding their first mobilisation – which resulted in the glass entrance to the attorney general’s office being smashed – a provocation”, leading to thousands more gathering to protest. Furthermore, President López Obrador himself was elected on a populist left-wing platform, but made alliance with evangelical Christian conservatives, and has also enacted significant budget cuts to programs like women's shelters, which has further contributed to feminist disappointment and dissent with López Obrador and his ally Sheinbaum. Protesters and feminist activists called for an increase in police accountability, better media reporting and respect for the privacy of rape victims, and policy at the local and federal level for increased security and action again
caption: Members of the Women's Human Rights Centre in Ciudad Chihuahua, Mexico call for justice for the murders of Rubi and Marisela.
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