Mexico has reached a political milestone. According to a quick count by the country’s electoral commission, Mexican voters have just elected their first female president. In a society that has long treated its women unfavourably, it is a seismic shift.

However, the country’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, inherits a very challenging responsibility. The second-best performing economy in Latin America risks being overwhelmed by cartel criminality, the growing threat of narco-politics, and surging violence against women.

To give a flavour of the scale of violence in the country, Mexico has seen more than 30,000 murders per year for five years straight. And the total number of people that have gone missing in Mexico since records began in 1962 now exceeds 100,000 – though, in reality, this figure may be far higher.

Many have argued that the spiralling violence has much to do with outgoing president Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador’s hands-off security policy. His reconciliatory message that he would support an agreement with some of the nation’s most powerful and violent cartels in order to stop the bloodshed has produced no credible outcome.

In fact, it is a stance that has let the country’s cartels and criminal groups strengthen their grip on every aspect of society. The cartels played a more prominent role in Sunday’s elections than ever before, assassinating several dozen candidates in the run up to the election, as well as killing politicians’ family members and campaign teams. Two people were even killed at polling stations as the voting got underway.

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All Mexicans have been exposed to higher levels of criminality and violence over recent years. But the country’s women have been disproportionately affected. They have suffered from what is often termed toxic masculinity and the nation’s dominant male chauvinist ideology.

This is an ideology that, according to some, has been legitimised and exacerbated by the López Obrador administration’s lack of interest in, and limited resources for, addressing gender-based violence.

During his term, López Obrador has made a long line of sexist comments that have angered feminist groups. In 2020, he even accused a nationwide women’s movement set up to draw attention to gender-based violence as being a front established by his “conservative” opponents for nefarious reasons.

Every year, more than 3,000 women in Mexico are murdered. And around a quarter of these murders are counted as femicide, where women are murdered simply because they are women. Girls and women also form the bulk of kidnapping, disappearances and human trafficking in the country.

The number of women undergoing these forms of violence in Mexico is likely to be much higher due to the substantial number of unreported and uninvestigated instances.

The killing of women in Mexico persists because of impunity. Men who commit femicide know that there is very little chance of facing justice. In 2018, for example, 93% of crimes in the country were either not reported or not investigated. Institutional apathy, weak legal protections and inadequate funding has placed women and girls in Mexico at greater risk of violence.

There is an urgency to address this issue. The election of Sheinbaum to the top political post puts a spotlight on the state of women in the country.

On the campaign trail, Sheinbaum repeatedly said: “I see myself as a feminist.” And she has reiterated that: “What I don’t agree with is violence. We [as a nation] cannot accept violence of any kind.”

As a woman, a self-declared feminist, and a committed technocrat keen to improve the condition of women in society, Sheinbaum has the role cut out for her on matters of gender justice in the country.

The elephant in the room

According to her critics, Sheinbaum is a continuity candidate walking in López Obrador’s shadow, who still enjoys one of the highest approval ratings in Latin America. Her critics have pointed out that she kept vague her security policies and proposals throughout the election campaign.

However, while she may not have confronted the issue head on, it would be unfair to suggest she has not thought the issue through. Her past record on confronting security challenges presents a different picture.

Mexico City’s homicide rate fell 50% between December 2018, when Sheinbaum was inaugurated as mayor, and June 2023, when she stepped aside to begin her presidential campaign. She attributes this drop in violence to effective security policies that improved police work and coordination with prosecutors.

Mexicans have voted Sheinbaum in not because she is a woman, but with the hope that she can turn things around. Despite assuring voters of “more of the same” throughout her campaign, Sheinbaum has vowed to reduce the murder rate from 23.3 homicides for every 100,000 residents to about 19.4 per 100,000 by 2027.

Sheinbaum has a very steep uphill climb. But she must succeed where her predecessor failed.