Mexico ranks fourth in the world for female representation
New Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada to govern with a utopian vision
Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada Molina governs with a cabinet of eleven women and ten men
October 2024: With the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum as Mexico's new president, the country has reached a milestone ahead of its northern neighbour. Even if the United States elects Kamala Harris as president in November, it will still lag far behind its traditionally macho southern neighbour in terms of gender parity.
President Claudia Sheinbaum will govern with a cabinet that is half female and the national Congress that is evenly split between men and women. Women head the Mexican Supreme Court, the Central Bank and several leading federal ministries.
Mexico has become a world leader in gender parity thanks to aggressive laws that introduce quotas for women in politics and government. These laws have had a dramatic impact. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Mexico ranks fourth in the world for female representation, while the US ranks 70th, one place behind Iraq.
The state capital, Mexico City, will continue to be governed by a woman. Following Sheinbaum's move to the presidency, Clara Brugada Molina will take over the mayorship of the city. The office is the second most important political position in Mexico and is often the stepping stone to a future presidency. Claudia Sheinbaum was mayor of Mexico City from 2018 to 2024, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the outgoing president, governed Mexico City from 2000 to 2006.
Clara Brugada grew up in Mexico City, but when she was 15, her father died, and the family moved to the poor southern state of Chiapas. In the past, she has often said she was profoundly moved by the inequality there and decided to study economics. As a student at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City, she volunteered at a school in the marginalised neighbourhood of San Miguel Teotongo and decided to move there.
She became a community leader. By her early 30s, she was a local legislator and was later elected to the national Congress. She served three terms as mayor of Mexico City’s largest borough, Iztapalapa. Her new cabinet will be made up of 10 men and 11 women. “All the departments will have a feminist perspective,” she said.
The new mayor of Mexico City is best known for her 12 ambitious ‘utopia’ community centre projects, which provide free recreational and educational opportunities in low-income areas. As district mayor, Clara Brugada also opened drug addiction support centres that focus on a harm reduction approach to substance abuse. Another of her innovative programmes provided 25,000 laying hens to households in Iztapalapa to improve food security. In a recent interview, the new mayor said she would govern Mexico City progressively and thanked her predecessor, Claudia Sheinbaum, for her accomplishments in the capital.