Mexico will soon elect its first female president – but that landmark masks an uneven march toward women's rights

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Xavier Medina Vidal, University of Texas at Arlington and Christopher Chambers-Ju, University of Texas at Arlington

(THE CONVERSATION) Mexico will elect its first female president in 2024, barring any surprises between now and the June vote.

The looming landmark moment was all but guaranteed in September after the country’s leading parties each nominated a woman as its candidate – the ruling Morena party named former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum as its nominee days after the main opposition coalition, Broad Front for Mexico, announced Xóchitl Gálvez, a senator for the center-right National Action Party, as its own.

But as scholars who study politicsand gender in Mexico, we know that optics are one thing, actual power another. Seventy years after women won the right to vote in Mexico, is the country moving any...