Mexico: Chauvinism and Homophobia in Political Parties

Arely Torres-Miranda, blogging for Mujeres construyendo (Women building), questions the misogyny and the chauvinism that exist within Mexican political parties, something they all have in common across the board: former representatives of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who hire sexual services, videos that involve members of the National Action Party (PAN) in private parties, victims of gender- based violence, homophobia from members of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Torres-Miranda explains that with all this chauvinism and homophobia, there are days when she would like to stop her fight for women's rights:

[…] en serio, hay días que quiero rendirme. ¿De qué van todas estas declaraciones? ¿Cómo llegan estas personas a puestos públicos dónde deberían de garantizar y cuidar los Derechos Humanos? Hace unos meses platicaba con un asesor del congreso del estado y le decía que me encantaría poder hacer una iniciativa de ley donde se cuidara que cualquier persona, hombre o mujer, que llegase a ocupar un puesto dentro del servicio público debería demostrar estudios certificados de género y Derechos Humanos…me dijo que no era posible, que eso sería discriminar y entonces, inmediatamente me convertiría en eso que tanto me quejo… ¿entonces, cómo nos cuidamos de esto?

[…] really, there are days when I want to give up. What are all those statements about? How do those people get a public position, with which they should guarantee and take care of human rights? Some months ago, I was talking to a Congress consultant, and I told him I'd like to start a bill where everybody who gets appointed as a public servant should be able to produce certified studies of gender and human rights. He told me that wasn't possible, that would be discrimination and then I immediately would become what I complain about. Then, how do we protect ourselves from this?

And she expresses her doubts in the best possible way: putting them into writing.

You can follow Arely Torres-Miranda on Twitter.

This post was part of the 27th #LunesDeBlogsGV (Monday of blogs on GV) on November 3, 2014.

Start the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.

Receive great stories from around the world directly in your inbox.

Sign up to receive the best of Global Voices!

Submitted addresses will be confirmed by email, and used only to keep you up to date about Global Voices and our mission. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Newsletter powered by Mailchimp (Privacy Policy and Terms).

* = required field
Email Frequency



No thanks, show me the site