Female Vote is Newly Prized

CAMPAIGNS: Presidential candidates are championing equal rights, raising women's hopes for a better life.

By Minerva Canto

The Orange County Register

April 2, 2000

MEXICO CITY — Candidates in Mexico's most competitive presidential election ever are courting the female vote by promising to create programs that will foster gender equality in a society still steeped in machismo.

They are talking about establishing a national women's institute, placing women in key government positions and banning workplace discrimination. About the only major issue candidates won't discuss is abortion.

With the two major candidates in the July 2 election running neck and neck in the polls, the women's vote is considered crucial. Women comprise 52 percent of registered voters and have been identified as more likely then men to stray from party affiliation.

Electoral reforms instituted in the late 1990s have fostered the nation's embryonic democracy and a competitive presidential election. For the first time since the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, assumed power in 1929, candidates are waging campaigns more in tune with multiparty U.S.-style politics.

Sofia Reyes, 35, is hoping this means better times ahead for Mexican women.

She earns a living flipping gorditas on blazing hot griddles 10 hours a day, six days a week, tempting people passing by her street stand with the tasty tortilla-like dish topped with salsa and meats.

Reyes earned a bachelor's degree in social work, but she worked one year in her chosen field before realizing the pay wasn't enough for her to live on.

What she wants from the candidates: "More jobs. Well-paying jobs. It's very difficult for women here to find a job, much less a well-paying job," Reyes said.

Although college-educated men also have difficulty finding high-salary jobs, Reyes said she believes women have a tougher time because men often don't take them seriously in the workplace.

HARD LIFE FOR WOMEN

It's not an easy life for the typical Mexican woman.

She probably works in a labor-intensive job in agriculture or in one of the maquiladoras factories usually located along the U.S. border.

Women suffer from countless forms of abuse and discrimination on and off the job because men are still seen as the primary breadwinners.

Estela Jimenez, 36, recalls how her now ex-husband beat her 19 years ago when she was four months pregnant.

"He told me he was going to beat the child out of me," the Mexico City woman said.

The couple, who had decided they couldn't afford a second child, had gone to a neighborhood woman who administered shots the couple believed would induce an abortion. But the folk remedy didn't work.

Fearing for her life, Jimenez left her husband even though her mother warned her she would have to become a prostitute because she lacked job skills. Committed to a new life as a single mother of two, she found work in a sewing factory, where she became involved in organizing a union.

"It was through talking to other women that I learned about my rights as a woman," Jimenez said, turning away as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

"Any woman who participates in public life, any woman who abandons her work in the home is subjected to some measure of discrimination," said Mariclaire Acosta Urquidi, founding member and president of the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights.

SILENCE ON ABORTION

The one major issue the three main candidates are hedging on is abortion.

"Here, no one is talking about abortion, and it's one of the most serious female mortality problems," said Marta Lamas, one of Mexico's leading feminists and president of GIRE, the country's only national abortion-rights organization.

One of the most extreme examples cited by abortion-rights advocates is when women believe their only option is to undergo an abortion because their employers either threaten to fire them if they become pregnant or require a pregnancy test before hiring them.

The feminists face stiff resistance from the powerful Catholic Church and a traditional government unwilling to oppose the church. Mexican law allows abortion only in certain cases, such as when the woman's life is in danger or the pregnancy is the result of rape.

Andrea Carrillo, 43, of San Juan Capistrano, a Mexican immigrant, said she has hoped for years that illegal abortions in her native country would become a thing of the past.

"Maybe now things will change," said Carrillo, who, like most Mexican immigrants is keeping a close watch on the Mexican elections.

PROMISING EQUALITY

In a television commercial, ruling party candidate Francisco Labastida wears a button-down sweater that gives him a grandfatherly look as he promises to secure women's equality. The candidate, shown to be the front-runner in recent polls, says he will provide prenatal services for all pregnant women and create a national women's institute to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

Labastida's platform, noting gender inequities such as lower average years of schooling among women, proposes reforms in the school system that would "establish guidelines of respect and cooperation between both sexes."

Vicente Fox, candidate of the oldest opposition party, the National Action Party, or PAN, also says he will establish a women's institute.

Just a few days ago, Fox told a gathering of community leaders that his vision of a future Mexico includes "women as a fundamental part of decision making in society's main institutions."

Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who is a distant third in the polls as candidate of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, has a clear edge over his opponents on women's issues.

Last year, the PRD became the first party to elect a female leader. (A few months later, PRI followed suit.) And when Cardenas left his post as mayor of MexicoCity last fall to campaign for the presidency, he appointed Rosario Robles as the first female mayor of the Mexican capital.

FEMINIST GAINS

Feminists say the PRD's mentality on gender equality sets it apart.

"You think there aren't women in PRI who are capable like Rosario Robles. There are capable women everywhere! Of course there are!" Lamas exclaimed. "But PRI has them and doesn't use them. PAN also has them and doesn't use them."

During its reign over the city, PRD also has established the Women's Institute, which has created 22 community centers that offer a wide variety of programs such as job training and workshops to educate women on their rights. The 2-year-old organization also has struck deals with small businesses that promise not to fire pregnant women and guarantee other rights.

"I do believe that opposition parties are the key to gaining ground in women's rights," said Gabriela Delgado, a PRD member and head of the Women's Institute in Mexico City.

Historically, it's been opposition parties that have helped women. In 1953, Mexican women won the right to vote with the help of PAN.

Now, it's the small Social Democratic Party that is proposing the most ambitious agenda on female rights.

While all parties say they are in favor of gender equality, Lama's group found that Social Democracy was the only party that mentioned the term abortion in more than a thousand pages of documents outlining the candidates' platforms.

Cardenas' platform says he favors "guaranteeing the constitutional right of a woman and her partner to freely decide the number and spacing of their children," but does not offer any details.

And even so, the platforms are just promises for now.

Like many voters, Reyes has become pessimistic after decades of unfulfilled promises.

"They all say the same thing," said Reyes as she served her customers. "And still, we're waiting for better salaries, a better life. I didn't envision I would spend my life selling gorditas."

CHART: CANDIDATES PROMISES TO WOMEN

What the three major candidates in Mexico's 2000 presidential elections are promising women:

REVOLUTIONARY INSTITUTIONAL PARTY (PRI), Francisco Labastida

WORKPLACE: Give 30 percent of government positions to women, institute reforms to ban pregnancy tests as a condition of employment, ensure equal pay for equal work, add more child-care centers.

HEALTH: Guarantee prenatal care to pregnant women. Promote easy access to quality health services for health education, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other diseases such as breast cancer.

EDUCATION: Guarantee equal access to education.

OTHER: Revise laws that discriminate against women and establish health agencies nationwidespecializing in sex crimes and staffed by women. Create a national women's institute to promote reforms that lead to gender equality. Foster a culture of gender equality through changes in education, parenting and the media.

NATIONAL ACTION PARTY (PAN), Vicente Fox

WORKPLACE: Place more women in government positions to help create public policies to foster gender equality. Create programs that would encourage women to seek jobs in fields traditionally dominated by men and increase the number of women in the work force.

HEALTH: Guarantee better access to preventive health and family planning programs. Favors abortion when a woman's life is in danger or there is no brain activity in the fetus. (PAN governments in four states have tried to modify their state constitutions to include the term "life from the point of conception.)

EDUCATION: Insist on an education system that gives equal access to boys and girls and promotes inclusion of boys in housework.

OTHER: Encourage public recognition of the value of women's work in the home.

DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION PARTY (PRD), Cuauhtemoc Cardenas

WORKPLACE: Include more women in top government jobs.

HEALTH: Create public policies that would combat sexual crimes against women. Favors the right of a woman and her partner to decide the number of children. Give priority to programs improving women's health and nutrition, especially for pregnant women.

EDUCATION: None specific to women.

OTHER: Further goals outlined in international accords to foster gender equality. Create public policies that would promote women's rights.

Sources: Candidates electoral platforms, speeches, statements to the media

CHART: MEXICAN WOMEN AT A GLANCE

Women comprise slightly more than half of the country's 95.8 million residents.

The percentage of female unemployed professionals is more than double the number of male unemployed professionals.

Indigenous women are at the lowest end of the economic and educational scale. They comprise 64 percent of the non-Spanish- speaking population and have an average of 3.3 children compared with a 2.5 average for all Mexican women.

About 15 percent of the female population is illiterate, compared with 9.8 percent of the male population.

Rate of school attendance is lower for women, partly because many females devote themselves solely to housework. The percentage of females attending school decreases as girls get older. At age 9, about 93 percent of girls attend school. By ages 15-19, more than half are not at school.

Women are the victims in more than 90 percent of the nation's sex crimes. Fifty percent of the victims are minors.

From 1953 to 1995, nearly 190 state Cabinet secretaries were appointed. Six were women.

Percentage of female members in the country's three major parties: 22 percent of Democratic Revolutionary Party, 18 percent of National Action Party and 12 percent of Revolutionary Institutional Party.

Abortions are estimated to be the third leading cause of death among pregnant women.

Sources: United Nations, Mexico's National Council on Population, the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information, political parties

(This was part of a series of stories on the historic 2000 Mexican presidential election written by Minerva Canto for The Orange County Register.)