▲ “Substantive equality continues to be a task under construction,” said Senator Malú Micher.Photo The Day
Andrea Becerril
La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, January 18, 2026, p. 8
The president of the Senate Commission for Gender Equality, Malú Micher, considered the holding of a second Feminist Congress to be of great relevance, in which it will be possible to assess what has been achieved by women in more than a century of struggle, the path that is still missing and define whether the power achieved in all areas is used to change the living conditions of the most vulnerable and precarious and not just some.
In an interview, the Morena senator commented that the Women’s Secretariat, headed by Citlalli Hernández, organizes the meeting and will have all “our support.”
The day before, she was one of the speakers at the ceremony for the 110th anniversary of the first Feminist Congress, held by “some brave teachers, academics and activists” in Yucatán, with proposals “as daring” as reproductive health, the use of contraceptives and the right to education, which now, more than a century later, the right wants to reverse.
Change power relations
She explained that the women of the 1916 Congress “understood something that is still valid: it is not enough to change laws if power relations are not transformed. It is not enough to open the door if the building remains the same.”
That first congress, he said, occurred decades before the world spoke of human rights as a common language. Before the Universal Declaration and international pacts, “they were already demanding dignity, equality and freedom,” because they understood that power does not change on its own and that it only transforms when it is challenged, questioned and confronted.
Much has changed in 110 years, she explained: women occupy spaces that for centuries were reserved exclusively for men in all powers; The country is governed by President Claudia Sheinbaum; Parity is a constitutional mandate, not a slogan, and substantive equality ceased to be an abstract aspiration and became an obligation of the State.
However, she added, recognizing the progress does not prevent us from clearly seeing what is missing, since “violence against women is daily,” because access to justice “depends on the territory, social condition, origin, age, and there are laws that are a permanent affront against our dignity.” Furthermore, in some states of the Republic, “instead of rights, morality, religion and prejudice are still invoked to judge, control and criminalize.”
All of this, she asserted, reminds feminists that “substantive equality continues to be a task in progress and a responsibility that does not admit setbacks” and should be the topic of the upcoming second Feminist Congress.
