By Kary Vannice

When Claudia Sheinbaum stood on stage last October as the first woman ever elected to lead Mexico, it felt like she had the potential to split open the bedrock of the male-dominated culture that has defined this country for centuries. Could Claudia’s administration be the wedge that finally pries the machismo foundation open and allows women’s rights to get a foothold in a nation long ruled by men?

In 2024, when Sheinbaum finally broke through the ultimate glass ceiling, it seemed like more than a political win. For many women it seemed like a chance to finally be seen, heard, and be granted rights that they had long been denied.

And they had very good reasons for those hopes. During the election Sheinbaum leaned into feminist themes, with slogans like “It’s time for women”, and made many political promises related to women’s rights and equality. Now, a year later, she’s had some wins and some losses on the front of equal rights and protection for women.

Her administration pushed forward a sweeping package of constitutional reforms that inserted the principle of substantive equality into the nation’s legal foundation. From now on, every law must be drafted with women’s rights in mind, and security and justice institutions are required to operate with a gender perspective.

For too long, women have been invisible in legislation and, at the same time, singled out and punished within the judicial system. As activist and lawyer, Patricia Olamendi, has often warned, “laws without gender perspective reproduce inequality.” This reform, at least on paper, is meant to interrupt that cycle.

Sheinbaum also launched a Women’s Rights Charter legislatively and published and publicly distributed a handbook to help women and girls understand their rights. Women now have a clear guide that says: these are my rights, and this is where I go when they are violated. In a country where, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, 70% of women over the age of 15 have experienced violence at least once, that kind of information is more than just symbolic, it’s empowering.

Economically, she made another very significant move on behalf of older women. A pension program for women aged 60 to 64, one that prioritizes Indigenous and Afro-Mexican women first, and over time expands to reach more than three million by 2026. For women who spent their lives raising families, supporting communities, and often working informally without social security, this pension represents long overdue recognition of their contributions to households, and the nation as a whole. It will not erase decades of invisibility and neglect, but it finally acknowledges that their work matters.

These are a few of the “wins” for women in Mexico, but Sheinbaum’s first year has been one of both promise and contradiction. Despite making some movement forward, many of the old patterns remain — underfunded institutions, muted responses to violence, and a tendency to cast women’s activism as disruption rather than democracy.

For this, Sheinbaum has many female critics. “Being a woman does not necessarily embody progressiveness in the women’s rights agenda,” said Friné Salguero, director at the Simone de Beauvoir Leadership Institute, warning that while Sheinbaum’s election was historic, her agenda may not be sufficiently transformative. And there is evidence to back up her criticism.

Despite the promises of reform, the numbers don’t all add up to better days for women ahead in Mexico. Women’s shelters which saw a surge of 75% more users between 2023 and 2024 have had their funding reduced by over 4% in 2025.

The newly created Ministry for Women, designed to give gender policy a permanent place in government, was underfunded at its inception. And even CONAVIM, the agency tasked with preventing violence against women, has faced budget cuts. Women’s support organizations warn that these reductions aren’t just disappointing, the consequences could be deadly for women and girls.

And of course, there is the violence against women itself. Relentless, visible to the point of being overt, and largely unchecked. Like the murder of influencer Valeria Márquez in Jalisco who was shot during a TikTok livestream in May. Shocking? Yes, but hardly unique in a country where 10 women a day are murdered and 13 are reported missing.

On security, Sheinbaum campaigned as the candidate who could “show results.” Yet polls show nearly half of Mexicans believe violence has gotten worse under her leadership, and women remain at the epicenter of this crisis.

So, yes, the presence of a woman in power matters. But when women still feel unsafe, silenced, or dismissed, presence alone cannot be the measure of progress.

But one cannot measure the weight of 200 years of male domination against a single year in office. Cultures and ideologies as deeply rooted as Mexico’s cannot be overturned in twelve months, or even in a single six-year term. But what can be measured is intention. Laws matter, but enforcement matters more. And leadership matters most of all.

The fact that Mexico’s most powerful leader is a woman is not meaningless. It is a rupture in a centuries-old foundation. Whether that rupture becomes the wedge that finally opens space for women’s rights to deeply root themselves into the bedrock of this nation depends heavily on what Sheinbaum chooses to do next.