Another day, another example of the audacity of man. But this time, there will be consequences.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was sexually harassed on Tuesday by a drunken man while traveling from one meeting to the next. What should have been a brief, uneventful walk and an opportunity to speak with her constituents became an example of the sort of aggressive impropriety women grapple with daily, as the man attempted to kiss her and hold her from behind – all while in front of a small crowd of people.
In the moment, Sheinbaum did what many of us women do to diffuse discomfort and mitigate the very real danger of rejecting men: She kept calm, and even kept smiling.
But ultimately, she is having none of it. Instead, she’s pressing charges.
During a press conference Wednesday, Sheinbaum made clear her intent to take her harasser to court, in service of saying a “loud and clear ‘no’” to such treatment. “A woman’s personal space must not be violated,” Sheinbaum stated. “I decided to press charges because this is something that I experienced as a woman – that we as women experience in our country.”
In Mexico, roughly half of girls and women report experiencing some form of sexual harassment or violence – a problem that’s exacerbated by few legal protections and a dearth in funding for programs and services that support victims. Sheinbaum has vowed to review both pain points following her own incident.
Yet that harassment figure, experts say, likely fails to represent the full scope of the problem, as many such cases go unreported. Indeed, feelings of shame, or a lack of power – especially in workplace settings, where power dynamics are taken advantage of and professional consequences for speaking out come into play – often keep women silent about their mistreatment, studies show.
Which turns Sheinbaum’s decision to pursue the matter publicly into a critical inflection point around men’s entitlement. Because, as she noted during her press conference: “If this is done to the president, what is going to happen to all of the young women in our country?”
