The apparent harassment of the Mexican president by a seemingly drunken man has led to a national conversation about the harassment women face on a daily basis.
President Claudia Sheinbaum was taking a five-minute walk on her way to the Education Ministry when a man approached her from behind, grabbed her, apparently attempted to cup her breasts over her clothes, and tried to kiss her, video showed.
‘If the most powerful woman in Mexico experienced harassment, what can women who travel on public transportation or walk alone every day expect?’
The man was brushed away by someone near the president, and the bizarre incident was captured on video by bystanders. Sheinbaum said in her daily media briefing that she was pressing charges against the man in order to show other Mexican women that the harassment was not acceptable.
“I decided to file a complaint because this is something … all women in our country experience,” Sheinbaum said. “I experienced it before, when I wasn’t president. It shouldn’t happen. No one should violate our personal space. No man has the right to violate that space.”
Others jumped on the incident to call for more action against public harassment.
“If the most powerful woman in Mexico experienced harassment, what can women who travel on public transportation or walk alone every day expect?” asked Ivonne Ortega, a member of Congress. “This is the reality that millions of women and girls face daily.”
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One survey of female transit riders from several nations found that Mexico had the worst reported rate of public harassment.
Some critics of the president speculated that the incident was orchestrated in order to draw attention away from the horrific assassination of the mayor of Uruapan, Michoácan, seemingly at the hands of the drug cartels.
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