No matter what happens, we’ll always see each other there? I don’t know, Mexican feminism is strained by various conflicts. There are issues that unite feminists and others that frankly divide them: friendships have been lost, alliances have been broken, they are already conceived as rivals.
On the one hand, they are reconciled by the fight against violence, for reproductive rights, to obtain greater political representation and in other spaces of power, and to achieve better working conditions. On the other, they are separated by surrogacy, transgender women, sex work, and class and race divisions.
As of 2018, their position against López Obrador also divides them: there are those who openly criticize him, there are others who are more pragmatic (they disagree with the president, but work with his government) and others who even defend the president and criticize feminists. (who are no longer her companions). Until now the common themes have been stronger and on 8M they march together, yes, but definitely not in riots.
The movement, already torn between these disputes, will face a new challenge: the 2024 elections.
López Obrador, faithful to the style that continues to give him good results in the polls, minimizes the legitimacy of feminist claims; if he conceives them as a result of the loss of values, the erosion of the traditional family or the long neoliberal night; in the end he ends up insisting that these are pretexts used by his opponents to attack him.
The day before this 8M, he made a distinction between legitimate, peaceful feminism that fights for socioeconomic equality, and another that is not even really feminism, because it is violent and is against transformation.
Claudia Sheinbaum, meanwhile, tries to embody the alternative of good feminism, that is, that of López Obrador. She calls for dialogue, calls for peaceful protest, is surrounded by other women from Morena. But, at the same time, she reproduces the president’s speech, warns that there will be violence with an obvious demobilizing purpose and rules out the possibility of a legitimate feminism that is not in Morena. In doing so, she tries to create a bridge between two positions and to project herself as the one who will resolve the dilemma between being a feminist and a lopezobradorista.
“It’s not feminism”: AMLO asks 8M protesters not to have violence
