Portrayal of female Mayor

Colombia is considered one of the south american countries that has done a great job in containing Covid-19. With a little over 15,000 infected people and a population of over 45 million people, it has one of the lowest rates of spreading in the region. One of the measures that has helped with this is the nation- wide quarantine that began on March 19th and is until today, still running. People are allowed to go out only one time per week, depending on what number their identification cards end with. Also, only one person can go out per household at a time. This has been one of the most debated points of the measure taken by president Ivan Duque. 

However, some days, this has been very relevant due to the fact that some government officials have violated this measure. The mayoress of Bogota, Claudia Lopez was seen going to the supermarket with her wife. Lopez is the first ever female to be elected as mayor of the capital city of the country. This has been on the table of discussion ever since she was elected on 2019, not only because she is the first one, but because she is also a lesbian. This should not be an issue at all, but it is in a conservative and highly catholic country as Colombia. 

When the news and picture evidence came out about her violation of the rule that only one member per family group could leave the house at a time, the media went crazy about it. It is ok that she was questioned and punished because of it, because being a government official does not give anyone the right to not follow country laws. The problem is that the media seemed to take advantage of this incident to indirectly critisize and unnecessarily highlight her sexual orientation. Many headlines of newspapers read "Mayor of Bogota goes shopping with her wife." In the explanation of the news, they all highlighted that she was a lesbian, and she was seen holding hands with her wife. This details were of no relevance to the fact of the news. This is why a lot of LGBT groups have come out to defend the Mayor and question big news outlets for the way they have written their news.