Former interior minister Olga Sánchez said Wednesday that she was a victim of sexism while serving in President López Obrador’s cabinet.

Speaking at a conference on violence and harassment in the workplace, the senate president and former Supreme Court judge said that people close to the president adopted macho attitudes toward her and devalued her work.

“[My work was] permanently devalued even though I took great pains to fulfill the responsibilities of the position of interior minister, one of the most important and difficult positions [in the government],” Sánchez said.

She said it appeared that the “few people” who sought to devalue her work did so in an attempt to “prove their superiority.”

Sánchez, who returned to the Senate in August after serving as López Obrador’s interior minister since the start of his government, said last year that she faced “considerable” misogyny in the federal security cabinet.

“There have been times when … my opinion was not taken into account, … even if I was right and even if I was contributing something important,” she said in October 2020.

However, days later she walked back her remarks, saying that that it was only her “perception” that she has been discriminated against. Sánchez said that her “hypersensitivity” about issues related to the “patriarchal structure” caused her to perceive that there was misogyny in the security cabinet.

On Wednesday, the senator revealed she has also faced challenges since leaving the interior minister position, telling the conference that even her “closest collaborators” opposed her taking up the Senate presidency on the grounds she lacked the experience needed for the position.

“… You think that reaching the highest spheres of power that everything is easy, but it’s much more complicated,” Sánchez said.

“ … When you get there they undermine you and everyone around you permanently undermines your work,” she said.

Combatting imbalances between men and women in social settings and the workplace is a “vital mission of these times,” the senator added. She also said that women and girls have to value themselves and their work.

“Self-esteem and self-worth are what will take us forward, despite the belittling, the harassment and everything we’ve been suffering for so many years.”

With reports from El Universal