Mexico's Gender Parity Revolution

                                                       

Mexico has emerged as one of the world’s leading examples of gender parity in politics, with women occupying nearly half of the country’s positions of political power.

President Claudia Sheinbaum’s 22-member cabinet includes 11 women. 

Women hold 64 of the 128 seats in the federal Senate and 251 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. 

Nearly 44 percent of Mexico’s states — 13 out of 31 — are governed by women.

The growing centrality of women in Mexican politics was symbolically evident in the 2024 presidential election, when Sheinbaum’s principal opponent was also a woman, Xóchitl Gálvez.  While Claudia Sheinbaum is a distinguished climate scientist, Xóchitl Gálvez comes from the world of technology entrepreneurship. Their campaign debates and public exchanges were notably civil, substantive and mature, marked by dignity and mutual respect.

This is in sharp contrast to Trump’s lies, fake news, insults, vulgar language and hate speeches. Mexicans, who are the objects of ridicule and abuse by Trump note that he has shown respect to their President Sheinbaum, which is unusual and rare in Trump theater. He has even expressed admiration for her. On her part, Sheinbaum has handled Trump diplomatically, pragmatically and quietly without getting provoked by his shouting and screaming. She has shown discrete flexibility giving in to some of the demands of Trump but has refused to budge on fundamental sovereign issues of concern to Mexico.

In 2009, over 93 % of Mexico’s governors were men, as were 72.4% of federal deputies and 80.5% of senators.

Women are also strongly represented in the judiciary, with five women serving on Mexico’s nine-member Supreme Court.

This remarkable transformation has been driven largely by a landmark constitutional reform passed in 2019 known as “Paridad en Todo” (“Parity in Everything”). The reform amended several articles of the Mexican Constitution to establish gender parity as a constitutional principle across the state apparatus.

The law mandated equal representation of women in:

• the federal executive branch,
• the national Congress,
• state legislatures,
• the judiciary,
• autonomous constitutional bodies,
• municipal governments,
• and political party candidate lists.

The reform went far beyond conventional quota systems by embedding parity into the constitutional structure of governance itself. One striking aspect of Mexico’s reform was the broad political consensus behind it. The measure received support across ideological and party lines, transforming gender parity from a partisan demand into a question of democratic legitimacy.

Mexico’s electoral authorities and courts actively enforce parity provisions. Political parties can have their candidate lists rejected if they fail to comply with gender requirements.

Under the reform:

• political parties must nominate equal numbers of women and men for legislative elections,
• cabinets and senior executive appointments are expected to reflect parity,
• judicial and administrative appointments are required to move toward balanced representation,
• and the reform applies at both federal and state levels.

All the political parties of Mexico follow these constitutional guidelines. In the House of Deputies, Morena, the ruling party, has the highest female representation (57.7%) with 146 deputies out of 253 total in the House.

Mexico’s reforms emerged within a broader Latin American movement toward what is often called “parity democracy.” Countries such as Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica have also adopted significant gender quota or parity laws during the past two decades. Argentina was the first country in Latin America — and one of the first in the world — to institutionalise a national legislative gender quota in 1991, a year before India introduced one-third reservations for women in local governments. 

What makes Mexico distinctive is the comprehensive nature of its 2019 constitutional reform. Unlike many quota systems that focus mainly on legislatures, Mexico extended parity requirements to executive and judicial institutions as well. Mexico’s reforms emerged through a combination of feminist mobilization, judicial activism, electoral reform and inter-party negotiations. This is remarkable given the fact that Mexico had been considered as a macho society.

Compared with weaker quota frameworks elsewhere, Mexico’s constitutional approach is considered more durable and structurally embedded. In many countries, quota systems stagnate or weaken when political conditions change; Mexico’s model enjoys greater resilience because parity has been elevated to a constitutional principle.

Mexico today ranks among the countries with the highest levels of female parliamentary representation in the world. The reform is frequently cited internationally as one of the most ambitious constitutional gender-parity measures enacted anywhere in the world. 

Mexico’s example could be studied by India which has recently tried and failed to pass a law for greater representation of women in the parliament. Female representation in Indian parliament is less than 15 percent. Of course, India’s socio political conditions, history, electoral system and political structure are different and more complex. Mexico’s proportional representation system and party-list model make parity easier to implement because parties can be legally compelled to alternate male and female candidates on electoral lists.

Mexico has also become the first country in the Global South- and in Latin America- to officially adopt a Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) in January 2020. The policy seeks to place gender equality, and women’s rights at the center of Mexico’s diplomacy, international cooperation, trade and multilateral engagement. At the COP25 climate negotiations, Mexico helped push for a Gender Action Plan related to climate policy.