No Crown Above Dignity
Two women. Two public moments. The same old story.
One walked through a city street and got groped. The other stood on a Miss Universe stage, wearing a crown, and faced harassment in front of cameras. Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, and Fátima Bosch, our Miss Mexico, didn’t need to say a word. The shock on their faces said enough.
As a woman — and as a National Researcher Level 1 who studies gender violence — I felt this one deep. Because they shouldn’t have had to live it. If I were in Sheinbaum’s shoes, I’ll be honest: that man might’ve ended up with a handprint souvenir. But here’s what makes these moments powerful — not the slap, tempting as it is, but the restraint. Greatness isn’t just about titles or crowns. It’s about the discipline to rise above instant rage.
The Baja Numbers Tell the Real Story
Here in Baja California, the data is chilling:
- 69.2 % of women aged 15 or older have faced some form of violence in their lifetime.
- 37.2 % suffered violence just in the last 12 months.
- The breakdown? 9 % physical, 22.3 % psychological, 19.9 % sexual, and 14.4 % economic or patrimonial.
- Between January and September 2025 alone, 14,409 women officially reported gender-based violence.
- Public spaces aren’t safer: 63.4 % of women in Tijuana and 58 % in Mexicali say they feel unsafe on public transport.
- Officially, only 174 sexual-harassment complaints were filed statewide in 2025 — 33 in Tijuana, 73 in Mexicali, and a handful elsewhere.
You don’t need a math degree to see the gap. Tens of thousands live it, only a few hundred report it.
Now, if you’re wondering about men — yes, some face harassment too. INEGI data shows 19.6 % of male internet users experienced cyber-harassment in the past year, compared with 22.2 % of women. But when it comes to the street or the bus? The data for men doesn’t even exist in Baja California’s public records. And that absence says a lot about who gets counted, and who doesn’t.
When a Governor Speaks Like a Woman
Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda didn’t dodge the topic. During her latest Tijuana press conference, she said what most of us were thinking:
“If it can happen to the President of Mexico, imagine what millions of women go through every day.”
Her tone wasn’t political — it was personal. And that’s what hit hardest.
Ávila has turned empathy into action, pushing programs like Ruta Violeta (women-only bus lines) and training over 14,000 public workers to handle gender-violence cases. Still, as she’d likely admit, the numbers prove the work’s far from done.
The Research Behind the Rage
Maybe some of our readers know me beyond my byline. I’m not just the woman writing about Valle wines and taco trucks. I’m also part of Mexico’s National System of Researchers, and last semester I led a project called “Invisibilización de la Violencia de Género.”
If you want to explore what that means — and practice your Spanish along the way — the project’s page is open to the public:
https://sites.google.com/uabc.edu.mx/violencia-de-pareja-/inicio
That work made one thing painfully clear: violence isn’t invisible because it’s rare — it’s invisible because we refuse to see it.
A Crown Isn’t Armor
Writing this, I keep circling back to the same thought: neither Sheinbaum nor Bosch had to explain what “no” means. They just lived the reminder that dignity doesn’t come with protection — not with a presidential sash, not with a Miss Universe crown.
So yes, Governor Ávila’s words matter. The data matters. But what matters most is that women — and the men who get it — keep saying out loud what too many still whisper. Because silence never protects anyone. Dignity does.
