Sunday, January 9, 2011

Machismo in San Lázaro: Whatever happened to the gender quotas?

First, the breakdown of gender in San Lázaro, Mexico's Chamber of Deputies:
365 are men (73 percent), while 135 are women (27 percent). Yet these figures, in terms of lack of gender parity, are worse than they should be: While the parties have followed federal laws regarding nomination of women candidates, once elected office, far too many diputadas (20-plus) have stepped down, allowing their male diputado suplente, or substitute deputies, to simply take their place, in a crude and particularly .offensive manner in which the parties are brazenly circumventing the laws on candidate gender quotas. They are often referred to as diputadas juanitas, a reference to AMLO's shameful postulation of the street-vendor-cum-stripper-cum-borough chief, Juanito, in Iztapalapa in 2009.
The PRI in particular has resorted to this mechanism.

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