Mexico Is Having a Historic Year as Women Like Fátima Bosch Push Back Against Machismo

Something shifted this year. You can feel it in the way Mexican women talk online, the way mothers call their daughters after watching the news, and the way people reacted when Miss Mexico Fátima Bosch stood her ground in Thailand. Mexico carries a long, violent history of machismo and misogyny. And yet, in the span of a few weeks, the country watched two women break ceilings that once felt reinforced with steel.

Fátima Bosch walked out of a Miss Universe event after an executive insulted her. Weeks later, she was crowned Miss Universe 2025. At the same time, a Frida Kahlo painting sold for a record-breaking $55 million. For a country where nine to ten women lose their lives each day, this year carries a rare sense of recognition.

Mexico feels the shift when a woman raises her voice

When Miss Mexico Fátima Bosch walked out of the Miss Universe sashing event in Bangkok, millions of Mexican and Latina viewers felt something crack open. A Thai executive, Nawat Itsaragrisil, confronted Bosch about missing a sponsor shoot. On the livestream, he called her “dumb.” She pushed back and said she wanted to keep “using my voice.” He told security to intervene.

However, Bosch did not stay silent. She left the room and several delegates followed her, including the reigning Miss Universe, Victoria Kjær Theilvig. The livestream captured Nawat saying, “Stop. Stop! Sit down. If anyone wants to continue the contest, sit down.” A later clip showed him saying, “except Mexico,” adding that she was “talking too much.”

What happened next turned her into a symbol. Hashtags like #StandWithMexico and #JusticeForFatima surged. Former contestants and fans called the walkout “the most empowering act in Miss Universe history.”

After the incident, Bosch told reporters, “I really love Thailand, I respect everyone, I think they are amazing people. But what the director just did was disrespectful; he called me ‘dumb’ because he has problems with the organization.” She added, “We are empowered women, and this is a platform for our voice, and no one can shut our voice. No one will do that to me.”

Mexico heard her.

Miss Universe México condemned the episode. “No woman, on any stage, deserves to be insulted or humiliated,” the organization wrote. Theilvig also spoke out, saying, “This is about women’s rights.”

Two weeks later, everything changed.

When Miss Universe crowns the woman who walked out

Fátima Bosch Fernández was crowned Miss Universe 2025 after an exceptionally chaotic pageant that involved resigning judges, accusations of rigging, falls on stage, and global scrutiny. Bosch became the 74th Miss Universe after being publicly berated earlier in the month.

Her victory hit differently for Mexico. President Claudia Sheinbaum responded directly to Bosch’s stance. Sheinbaum said Bosch set “an example of how we women should speak out,” adding, “We women look more beautiful when we raise our voice and participate, because that has to do with the recognition of our rights.”

For a country built on centuries of patriarchal systems, hearing that from Mexico’s first female president matters.

Mexico carries a long and brutal history of gender violence

While these wins are historic, they sit atop a devastating reality. Gender violence defines daily life for millions of Mexican women. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico, 66.1 percent of women over 15 have experienced some form of violence. According to the same data, 41.3 percent have experienced sexual violence.

On the metro alone, nine out of ten women have experienced sexual harassment. Femicide remains a national emergency. According to Amnesty International, hundreds of women have been murdered in cities like Ciudad Juárez since the 1990s, with few cases solved.

Activists describe this crisis as structural: colonial history, Catholic marianismo, and economic precarity. Neoliberal reforms that pushed women into unsafe workplaces. All of it feeds into what academics call a “machista” ecosystem.

Mexico’s femicide crisis reflects that ecosystem. According to the UN, Mexico has one of the highest rates of gender violence in the world.

This is the context behind why Fátima Bosch’s refusal to shrink resonated so powerfully.

Mexico reacts again when Claudia Sheinbaum says, ‘If this happens to the president…’

Just days before Bosch addressed the media in Thailand, President Claudia Sheinbaum faced her own moment of violence. A visibly drunk man groped her in public as she walked down a street in Mexico City. Cameras captured everything. Sheinbaum later learned from the video that the man touched her breast and attempted to kiss her.

She pressed charges. She said, “If I don’t file a complaint, what will become of all Mexican women? If this happens to the president, what will happen to all the young women in our country?”

Mexico watched its president treat her own assault as a precedent-setting act. This is the same country where only 4.46 percent of crimes result in convictions, according to the Mexico Global Impunity Index. This is the same country where nearly all sexual harassment cases on public transportation go unreported.

When Sheinbaum said her choice was for “all Mexican women,” people listened.

Mexico sees Frida Kahlo break a record in the same month

While these conversations about voice and violence unfolded, another Mexican woman made history from across time. According to the BBC, Frida Kahlo’s 1940s painting El sueño (La cama) sold for $ 54.7 million. It became the most expensive artwork by a woman ever sold at auction.

The painting has gone for more than 1,000 times its price since 1980. Sotheby’s called it “psychologically charged.” The sale broke the previous record for a Georgia O’Keeffe work. It also marked the highest price ever paid for a Kahlo piece.

Kahlo painted through pain. She chronicled her body after a childhood illness and a catastrophic bus accident, documenting heartbreak and surgeries. She turned suffering into art that still pushes people to look inward.

Her record sale in 2025 hit Mexico like a reminder: women’s stories hold value. Their work survives.

Mexico is having a cultural moment shaped by women who refuse silence

These moments do not cancel out the violence. They do not erase the generations of women who fought against colonial gender roles, machista systems, and a justice system that rarely protects them.

But they do show movement.

Women raise their voices. Mexico listens. And this year, the world does too.