As the sun rises in Mexico City, Marchigua sets off on her 45-minute cycle ride from the fringes of the city to Alameda Central park. There, the 37-year-old campaigner joins a lively group arranging blankets on the pavement and putting up banners, all bearing messages in support of women’s rights.
Women wear scarves in green and purple – the colours of Latin America’s equality movement. This mercadita feminista, or feminist market, is one of several around the city – and about more than commerce.
As the pavements are transformed into a colourful canvas of merchandise, from jewellery and crafts to soap and secondhand clothes, the stalls are also a protest against Mexico’s persistent gender inequality.
On weekdays, Marchigua prints stickers and posters with slogans, which she sells or exchanges with fellow traders. She chose to work at the market after being exhausted by the discrimination and abuse she experienced in the workplace over her sexuality. She now calls herself a full-time activist.
“Part of our philosophy is to underscore the act of seizing public spaces as women and gender dissidents – a political stance,” she says, handing over a set of $2 stickers in her first sale of the day. “It’s about showcasing our capacity to sustain ourselves and generate our own resources.”
Mar Cruz, a human rights advocate in Mexico, has been following the development of the Mercaditas Feministas since 2016, when it began as a Facebook group where women sold and exchanged food and other products.
It embodies “new economic approaches”, she says, where not just money changes hands but also there is a “barter of products, knowledge and services tailored to individual needs, from menstrual healthcare to psychological assistance or legal services”.
During the Covid pandemic, the increase in femicides and violence against women, as well as record numbers of layoffs in Mexico, prompted the group to grow as a support network.
“It was an emergency, and there was a need to find ways for women to be independent and help those unemployed to survive,” says Cruz.
As restrictions eased, women launched their markets in Alameda Central park, Colonia Roma and Plaza de los Insurgentes. The Human Rights Commission of Mexico City (CDHCM) says about 600 people are involved.
Nelly López, 64, is a grandmother who not only sells goods but provides psychological and legal assistance, especially for survivors of violence.
In Mexico, more than 3,000 women a year are murdered, with conviction rates continuing to hover at about 5%. Approximately one in four murders in Mexico are classified as femicides.
In the home, inequality is rife. A CDHCM report in 2019 found that women spend 67% of their time on unpaid work such as childcare and domestic chores, compared with 28% for men.
López believes in the importance of developing economic opportunities for women in her country. “The state has failed us so we only have each other. If we don’t save ourselves, no one saves us,” she says.
The mercaditas are unlicensed and occasionally harassed by police and other street vendors, but have earned local recognition, with the city’s rights commission issuing a report endorsing their transformative effect on the capital.
For the stallholders, the true impact of their efforts lies in the network they have built.
Laura López, 28, who sells soft toys and handmade jewellery, has found in the mercaditas not only a livelihood but a support network.
“I am a single mother,” she says. “Sometimes I feel alone. However, the political act of putting ourselves on the streets makes me feel I am not alone. On the streets, we are all one.”