Denise Dresser
The scene was uncomfortable, brutal. Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, was walking through the crowd when a man approached her and, without permission, touched her breasts. Within seconds, the body of a powerful woman was invaded. The unsolicited caress became evidence: neither the presidential investiture protects from abuse, nor does power guarantee respect for the body.
The newspaper Reforma was right when it questioned how someone could get so close to the President. But he was even more right to exhibit the vulnerability that all the rest of us suffer, without escorts, without cameras, without justice.
Being a woman in Mexico is living in fear. Walking, taking the Metro, going to work or returning at night involves calculating routes, taking keys as weapons, letting us know that we arrived alive. Every day, according to Inegi, ten women are murdered, thousands are raped or disappear without a trace. One in three has suffered sexual violence. There are 25 thousand open files for sexual abuse, but only a fraction reaches a sentence. The country that prides itself on having a woman in the Presidency, continues to be one where being a woman is equivalent to living in a permanent state of alert.
And when the abuse comes from power, impunity is almost total. Yohali Reséndiz documents it precisely in Violar desde el poder: Sexual abuse, harassment and pedophilia of Mexican politicians: officials, governors, legislators, judges who feel untouchable. Women who have been pilgrims through public ministries for years, archived, re-victimized, silenced. Protocols that are not applied, complaints that disappear. A State that forces them to defend themselves against the State itself.
That’s why Sheinbaum’s abuse matters. Because it makes visible what millions experience every day. But also because it forces us to look at a constant contradiction of the 4T: the President who denounces abuse has protected abusers from her own party. He campaigned for Félix Salgado Macedonio, and has supported Cuauhtémoc Blanco. And while she found justice within hours, the other women encounter an increasingly high judicial wall.
Many ask: was it real or was it staged? The doubts do not arise from cynicism, but from recent history. From Claudia Sheinbaum sitting on the non-existent “suburban train to AIFA”. From the media montages of a government that uses propaganda to misinform.
But regardless of the origin of the video or the identity of the perpetrator, the image is compelling: a woman’s body was violated in public, and that violence must be named. It must be condemned. Because every “I don’t believe you” to the President reveals thousands of “I don’t believe you” in courts, offices, homes.
And there comes the second aggression: the institutional one. The one that is committed with decrees, scissors and budgets. According to México Evalúa, the total spending allocated to the rule of law in 2026 will be one of the lowest in 15 years. The cut to the Judiciary amounts to 15.8 billion pesos, the largest since 2003. With that snip, the budget of the courts will fall to its lowest level since 2009. And that figure is not an abstraction: it means fewer public defenders, fewer forensic psychologists, fewer interpreters, less training with a gender perspective. It means that poor women—those who do not live in the National Palace—will have even less access to justice. Women denounce, but the State responds with austerity.
Thus, the President’s feminist speech crashes against budgetary reality. Citlalli Hernández, Secretary of Women, promises to “homologize the crime of sexual abuse” and launch campaigns to educate men. Nice words. But changing the law does not change reality if there are no police, prosecutors or judges to enforce it. There is little point in legislating if justice is not financed. That’s why, when Sheinbaum says “I was a victim of abuse,” millions of us wanted to believe him. I do believe you, Claudia. But I also believe in women that no one records, no one defends. In those who go to the Public Ministry, they report, and they respond that “there are no elements.” In which they encounter the impoverished State and empowered machismo.
It’s good that a woman in Mexico has found justice. Unfortunately, the rest of us are still outside the metal fences that the President orders to be placed every March 8 at the feminist marches. She walks escorted. We still walk alone.
denise.dresser@mexicofirme.com
Academic and political scientist
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