Breathe
By María del Carmen Alanis
Last week we witnessed a disturbing scene in the Chamber of Deputies. Not only for what was seen, but for all that was covered up. The failed attempt to remove Cuauhtémoc Blanco, accused by his half-sister of attempted rape, exposed a serious omission by the State, and also showed us the depth of the political violence we women face, even from within the institutions.
Out of 251 female deputies, only 22 voted in favor of the desafuero. The rest, including many women, chose to protect the accused. They surrounded him in the tribune, allowed him to speak illegally -while a female deputy took the floor- and the president of the Chamber validated the outrage. All this, in the face of a public, serious and concrete accusation.
But this story does not stop there. Because the violence was not only experienced by the woman who filed the complaint. It has also been experienced by the 22 women deputies who dared to vote their conscience. Since before the vote, and even more harshly after it, they have been subjected to harassment, threats, isolation and reprisals within their own benches. One of them was expelled from parliamentary chat rooms, eliminating a basic tool of legislative communication, and has been publicly attacked for being the daughter of the owner of a national media outlet. Some of them have been threatened with the loss of prerogatives, platform space and future leadership positions. They have been made aware, subtly or openly, that dissent has consequences.
All this configures a series of violence that coexist and reinforce each other: institutional violence, by allowing the rules of Congress to be violated to protect the accused; political violence, by instrumentalizing the privilege as a shield of impunity; and political violence against women because of their gender, by punishing those who dare not to align themselves with the pact of silence.
The message is clear: you can be a woman in politics, yes, but you cannot exercise your rights with autonomy. You can be in the House, but you can't raise your voice if what you say is uncomfortable. You can vote, but not against power, and so the inevitable question is: what can these women do today, where is the state to protect them?
There are legal routes. They can go to the National Electoral Institute to denounce party leaders, parliamentary coordinators or the Speaker of the House himself, for violations to their political and electoral rights. They can file citizen suits before the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power and request precautionary measures. They could even demand, as established by law, public apologies from those who have violated them.
But beyond the legal path, what this case exposes is the disproportionate cost of exercising politics with conscience, being a woman. Because parity is not enough if the system continues to reward obedience and punish ethics. It is not only a question of how many women there are in Congress, but of what they are allowed to do, to say, to defend.
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