“I am a mother, grandmother, scientist and woman of faith. And as of today, by the will of the people of Mexico, the constitutional president of the United Mexican States.”
With those words, Claudia Sheinbaum made history this Tuesday by becoming the first woman to assume the presidency of Mexico.
“I don’t arrive alone, we all arrive”said before Congress in a first speech as president that had a special focus on the fact that women are accessing spaces of power that were previously denied to them.
“They arrive, those who dreamed of the possibility that one day it would not matter if we were born as women or men, we can realize dreams and desires. Without our sex determining our destiny. They arrive, all of them, who thought we were free and happy.”
And like his speech, his inauguration was accompanied by some symbolism that describes the profile he wants to give to his government.
Here we review three of those symbols with which he seeks to give a new identity to the presidency of Mexico.
1. The ivory dress with flowers
The ivory-colored suit that Sheinbaum chose to assume the presidency stood out for the embroidered floral motifs on the cuffs and right side that exalt the artisanal work of indigenous women of the country.
These ornaments were made by hand by the artisan Claudia Vasquez Aquinofrom the community of Santa María Xadani, Oaxaca, in the region of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec where the Zapotec culture resides.
It was embroidered with a needle and crocheted in a work that was commissioned several months ago. More than a hundred flowers were added to the president’s dress, both on her jacket and on her skirt.
At the beginning of her speech, Sheinbaum praised indigenous knowledge that has survived to the present day, including women’s textile art. “They wove and weave textiles with the hands of artisan women that intertwine with the soul and with life,” she said.
In the past Sheinbaum has worn handmade dresses, as in her first message after being declared the winner of the election on June 2.
“Normally we are behind a designer, but they don’t give us credit. And for her to mention it is recognition for the work,” Vásquez told the newspaper Quadratín.
2. The presence of Ifigenia Martínez
At the ceremony at the Congress headquarters, Sheinbaum received the Presidential Band – the garment that only the president of Mexico can wear – from the hand of a historical figure in Mexican politics: Ifigenia Martínez.
The 94-year-old politician from the Morena party was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies as a tribute to her career, but also so that it would be a woman who would present the Presidential Sash to the first woman president for the first time. of the history of Mexico.
Martínez was seen making considerable efforts to hand over the band to Sheinbaum due to his advanced age.
With her academic training in the subject, she was the first director of the National School of Economics, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, in 1967. She was also the first Mexican to obtain a master’s degree in Economics from Harvard, United States.
In 1968 he supported the students in the protests that ended the repression that left dozens of dead and that marked the country. Since then he focused on the social struggle and joined the leftist parties of that time.
In 1980 she was appointed Mexican ambassador to the UN.
At the end of that decade, she was one of the co-founders of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which was the base that would later nourish the ranks of the political movement of Andrés Manuel López Obrador who won the presidency in 2018.
In her career she has been a senator three times and a representative three times.
3. The “young Mexican woman” who looks to the left
A few hours before his inauguration, Sheinbaum revealed the institutional image that his government will have, described as a “recognition of all women and their historical struggle”.
“She is a young Mexican, a symbol of so many generations of women made invisible by history, but who have remained in the fight for their rights, dreams and desires,” her communication team reported.
The fact that it looks to the left is also part of the symbolism, he noted, as it attempts to describe “the people’s struggle to achieve justice and freedom,” according to the description of the graphic identity of the new government.
The woman carries the flag in which the National Shield is not visible. In its place is the face of the woman, something that has also been seen as the focus on women that he tries to give to his administration.
This new symbol will accompany official documents and as an institutional image.
In her speech, Sheinbaum made reference to the visibility she wants to give to women in her government.
“For a long time, women were nullified. Since we were children, many of us were told a version of history that wanted us to believe that the course of humanity was led only by men. That vision has been reversing.
“Today we know that women participated in the great feats of Mexican history, from different trenches. And we also know that women can be presidents“.
And as she has done in the past, she asked that the term president and not president be used.
“Because, as we have been taught, only what is named exists.”
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