Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she will press charges against a man who groped her during a public appearance.
Mobile phone footage of the incident on Tuesday shows Sheinbaum speaking to a group of supporters on a street near the National Palace in Mexico City. A man approaches her from behind and attempts to kiss her on the neck and place his hands on her body.
“My view is, if I don’t file a complaint, what will happen to other Mexican women? If they do this to the president, what will happen to all women in our country?” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Wednesday.
In another thread about this episode people were saying the entire incident was staged by her to distract from other news. I got downvoted to hell for suggesting that it was anti-woman to believe such a conspiracy theory rather than acknowledge that a woman got groped.
The fact that she’s pressing charges should put the conspiracy theory to bed. Why would she take it into a courtroom for more attention if it was just a stunt to manipulate the press that week? I’m sure someone will double down on conspiracy theories to come up with an answer to that question…
It’s infuriating. A woman can be sexually assaulted, on video, in front of hundreds of witnesses, and some people will still insist it didn’t happen, or she staged it, or it was her fault somehow.
This is why we still need DEI. Jesus fucking Christ.
Sexism is believing it is okay to grope a woman and commit sexual assault.
Casual sexism is automatically assuming a woman (in power or not) who brings legal action against someone for committing sexual assault is doing so for attention or some other false ulterior motive.
And its happening right here, right now. Fucking God damn. Sexism is still rampant in 2025.
Yes, thank you. It’s less overt of an assault on women then physically groping them, but it’s perhaps more insidious, because an environment of ignore-and-excuse puts ALL women everywhere at risk
She SAID she will press charges, but she lies daily for millions to see on TV every morning.
But go off, the staging is very convincing for someone who doesn’t know shit about our current political climate in México
I think it’s that #believeallwomen is a hard hill to die on. Any internet troll is a Google search away from proof that you shouldn’t blindly believe all women. It just reminds me of when Joe Biden had some allegations against him, and he got caught between a rock and a hard place: believe all women, just not this one.
Instead of belief, it’s about respect. Whether true or not, any accusation should be taken seriously and avoid sensationalism. It’s also about understanding your role. It’s easy for me to say all of this about a situation thousands of miles away; I have an infinitely small role. If it happens closer to home, to someone you know, belief may be a part of that role, but it still needs to come from a place of respect and understand of the situation. If religion is any example, blind belief doesn’t help anything but fuel division.
It’s not about blindly believing all women all the time. It’s about believing them by default, and as you say, taking them seriously. In this case they were willing to discard the evidence of their eyes in favor of some pretty far fetched conspiracy theory, and considered anyone who didn’t agree to be some naive idiot. And they paradoxically claimed to take sexual assault very seriously, while doing this. SMH
Not dismissing the idea that it might be for real, but random man being able to grope the literal President sounds kinda sus.
I’m not super into Mexican politics, but doesn’t she have guard on duty to prevent just that?
I’m glad you don’t automatically dismiss that she was actually assaulted (!!!) I mean that’s pretty much the bare minimum everyone should do. This was captured on video. You can view it for yourself. Her guards did intervene, just a step too late. That does not mean she staged it for attention.
But everyone would love to feel smart and come up with some alternative theory of what happened rather than contend with the sordid facts.