Mexico is poised to elect its first woman president. Will women’s lives improve?
When Brenda Magaña Díaz was growing up in a working-class Mexico City neighborhood in the early 2000s, no one ever told her a woman could one day become president.
She had few obvious role models when she became one of six women in her graduating law school class. When she went on to work as a staffer at the Supreme Court and later for the president of the Mexican Congress, most of her colleagues were male.
On a recent day, Ms. Magaña, who now coordinates the “war room” of a candidate in Mexico’s upcoming presidential election, moves fast despite her stiletto heels, greeting a receptionist warmly as she heads upstairs and through a bright open room. A dozen young men and women are clicking away on their computers.
Her path to this point in her career may have been a lonely one – but it won’t be for girls growing up in 2024.
Julia Álvarez Icaza Ramírez came of age during the same era as Ms. Magaña, but in a middle-class Mexico City neighborhood. She didn’t have adults impressing upon her the possibility that a woman could be president, either. Growing up within Mexico’s burgeoning feminist movement, however, the young lawyer has focused her career on arguing for better gender perspectives in her country’s sentencing practices, a part of her wider commitment to restorative justice. Now Ms. Álvarez is putting that lens on the office of the president.
On another recent day, Ms. Álvarez is sitting in a spacious sound booth as part of a radio debate. In a circle of business suits and collared shirts, she wears an embroidered huipil, a traditional garment worn by Indigenous women, over her bluejeans. Amid tie clips and watches, she wears a delicate silver hoop glinting in her right nostril as she pleads her case for the leftist candidate she supports.
These two women hail from different ideological folds, but they are united in one effort: to see this macho country elect its first woman as president when it heads to the polls June 2.
Ms. Álvarez is a spokesperson for Claudia Sheinbaum
