A Brief History: Women's Participation in Life Outside the Home

By Sofía Ramírez

The participation of women in public life has -at least- two important restrictions. First, we have not yet managed to ensure that the presence of equal numbers of women and men in elected office is translated into public policies with a gender perspective, and therefore, the most basic needs of women in the country are still being neglected . And second, the use of women's time, which has been accompanied by social and family patterns that have held us back as a society from becoming more egalitarian for more than 100 years.

Let's take a step by step approach. Today there are at least 50% of women in the federal and local legislative branches. This is a good start, but it is not a favor, since these are the spaces of popular representation and in Mexico we are 52% of the population; more than 53% if we only consider those who can vote. In the Court there are barely a third of women and in the federal cabinet there are 40% of women.