Mexico City wants to rename streets after cartoons for women aged 27+ that summarize a hellish week

On International Women’s Day, Mexico City’s government unveiled an initiative to rename streets after women, including communist leader Rosa Luxemburg and American singer Aretha Franklin.

More than 90 percent of the streets in the metropolis are currently named after men, acting head of the Mexican capital Martí Batres said on Friday (local time).

The “City of Heroines” project should now change this and initiate a cultural change.

A website has been set up where citizens can vote on name suggestions. The city council suggested about thirty names of activists, singers and writers, most from Mexico. The list should be expanded through suggestions from citizens.

On the occasion of Women’s Day, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the Mexican capital to demonstrate against violence against women and for gender equality. The posters included:

Feminist U-turn

Although women in Mexico often suffer from sexual violence and are less involved in the labor market than men, the country of almost 130 million inhabitants is on the verge of a turnaround.

In the upcoming presidential elections on June 2, the most populous Spanish-speaking country is expected to have a female president for the first time, as the two major party alliances nominated women as top candidates.

(cst/sda/dpa)