Political Representation And Gender Equality In Mexico

The field of gender and politics has continuously grown, becoming more interdisciplinary and engaging with issues, context and people from all around the world. Because of this, new emerging approaches and studies challenge embedded notions, ideas and preconceptions of how the world is meant to be studied and understood. It is particularly true for studies on women and their engagement in political affairs. How should institutions conceptualize women in order to advance rules and mechanisms that favor women? What roles do representatives have on the making of gender equality? When women are legislating, which are the consequences of the approved legislation?

This book offers an analysis of how women's participation is conducted in Mexico´s political sphere. Federalization and decentralization processes can have a significant impact on women’s participation and discrimination. By questioning the form in which a democratic state is built (that is, the degree of (de)centralization) the book looks to a set of forms and processes affecting women’s political life. A decentralized form of state-government implies three levels of government in which women (or any other group of people) can have active participation: central-federal government, state-regional-province government, and local (municipalities) government. This book offers an analysis of how gender discrimination operates in a different way in each of these levels of government and the corresponding political activity. Policies that fight against gender discrimination and promote women's participation, in both administration and political parties, do not always operate cooperatively, and often exist in contradiction with each other.

This book aims to fill a gap in research on women's political representation by developing a multidimensional assessment of female participation in subnational legislatures in a federal political system like Mexico. The Mexican experience in terms of women's political representation at the federal and subnational levels has been very successful, as the reforms created a more robust "gender electoral regime" that promoted an increase in the number of elected female legislators (1987-2021). Still, little is known about the impact of the rise in women's presence in Congresses on other dimensions of political representation, such as symbolic or substantive. Although previous studies on women's political representation in Mexico have yielded exciting conclusions based on empirical evidence and strengthened a theory focused on the analysis of presence, it is still insufficient to explain the other dimensions of representation and the relationship between them. Therefore, this book contributes to the comparative scholarship from the perspective of feminist neo-institutionalism, expanding the understanding of the relationship between women's formal and descriptive representation, the content of legislative work in terms of preferences and interests (substantive representation), and its symbolic effects on women and politics in general (symbolic representation). Women in Mexican Subnational Legislatures: From Descriptive to Substantive Representation will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, and jurists interested in gender and politics. The book fills a theoretical and empirical gap on the effects of gender parity in the programmatic and symbolic scope of power building. The findings on good practices and challenges are discussed within a broader body of comparative research, providing knowledge to academia, policymakers, and international cooperation agencies about the remaining obstacles to strengthening Latin American democracies and the need to continue exploring the links between subnational politics and democratization of federal political systems.

To date, the mainstream literature on Mexican politics has said little about women, even though their participation as formal political actors has increased dramatically in the past fifteen years. Somewhat surprisingly, the political participation of women, although well documented in other Latin American countries, has been neglected in the case

In the past thirty years, women's representation and gender equality has developed unevenly in Latin America. Some countries have experienced large increases in gender equality in political offices, whereas others have not, and even within countries, some political arenas have become more gender equal whereas others continue to exude intense gender inequality. These patterns are inconsistent with explanations of social and cultural improvements in gender equality leading to improved gender equality in political office. Gender and Representation in Latin America argues instead that gender inequality in political representation in Latin America is rooted in institutions and the democratic challenges and political crises facing Latin American countries and that these challenges matter for the number of women and men elected to office, what they do once there, how much power they gain access to, and how their presence and actions influence democracy and society more broadly. The book draws upon the expertise of top scholars of women, gender, and political institutions in Latin America to analyze the institutional and contextual causes and consequences of women's representation in Latin America. It does this in part 1 with chapters that analyze gender and political representation regionwide in each of five different "arenas of representation"-the presidency, cabinets, national legislatures, political parties, and subnational governments. In part 2, it provides chapters that analyze gender and representation in each of seven different countries-Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. The authors bring novel insights and impressive new data to their analyses, helping to make this one of the most comprehensive books on gender and political representation in Latin America today.

Since the mid-1980s, a dramatic opening in Mexico's political and electoral processes, combined with the growth of a new civic culture, has created unprecedented opportunities for women and other previously repressed or ignored groups to participate in the political life of the nation. In this book, Victoria Rodríguez offers the first comprehensive analysis of how Mexican women have taken advantage of new opportunities to participate in the political process through elected and appointed office, nongovernmental organizations, and grassroots activism. Drawing on scores of interviews with politically active women conducted since 1994, Rodríguez looks at Mexican women's political participation from a variety of angles. She analyzes the factors that have increased women's political activity: from the women's movement, to the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s, to increasing democratization, to the victory of Vicente Fox in the 2000 presidential election. She maps out the pathways that women have used to gain access to public life and also the roadblocks that continue to limit women's participation in politics, especially at higher levels of government. And she offers hopeful, yet realistic predictions for women's future participation in the political life of Mexico.

This review looks at gender equality in Mexico, examining what advancement has already been made and exploring what needs to be done to close existing gender gaps in political, social and economic life and promote real social change.

The constant changes that occur in a globalized world have pushed gender equality to the forefront of many debates in the western world. Nevertheless, cultural values continue to influence the way in which governments, societies, and individuals behave in regard to the roles that men and women play. In Mexico, despite the cultural values that are embedded in society, women have been able to succeed in areas where, until a few decades ago, it would have been unimaginable. During the last forty years, the Mexican government has gone through a gradual transformation that has allowed women to become an active part of the political arena. Nevertheless, the path continues to be arduous, as deep-seated social values and prejudices still influence the thoughts of many individuals. Few studies have specifically addressed the involvement of women in Mexican history and politics, especially using first-hand accounts. This study aims to fill that gap and help understand the importance of the involvement of women throughout the history of Mexico, and offer a privileged insight to their lives and experiences. To do so, twelve women who have actively participated in Mexican politics through direct appointment, elections, activism, and academia were interviewed. While the sample is small, these twelve women are part of a very small and select group of female political leaders in Mexico, which include former first ladies, ministers of the Supreme Court, senators, congresswomen, ambassadors, members of different presidential cabinets, academicians, and activists. The common themes that the women interviewed discussed were culture and prejudice, the role of traits in leadership, gender quotas, the role of first ladies, the importance of political parties, and the possibility of having a female president. None of the leaders identified as politicians first; rather, they saw their family as a primary focus. This research gives a limited but rich and useful journalistic perspective on the careers of women who have helped shape contemporary Mexico. While the small convenience sample provides a limitation to generalizing the results, the women interviewed are all key leaders in Mexican politics and their experiences can inform the role and impact of women in Mexico.

Mexico is a country whose global political and economic significance are rapidly increasing. This book offers the first in-depth English-language analysis of the politics of representation in Mexico. Through innovative conceptual work and original case studies, the book explores important trends in Mexican politics and governance through the lens of representation, including who speaks and stands for whom, on what grounds and in what domains and the challenges they face. Revealing a significant portrait of major tensions in and challenges to democracy across Mexico emerges, this book will be of interest to those researching current trends in the theory and practice of political representation, and readers looking for new perspectives on Mexican politics and governance.