Elvia Carrillo Puerto

Elvia Carrillo Puerto (30 January 1881 – 18 April 1965) was a Mexican socialist politician and feminist activist. She is known for founding the Liga Feminista Rita Cetina Gutiérrez and for helping to organize the Frente Único pro Derechos de la Mujer, both significant feminist organizations. She is also known for her attempts to run for office in Yucatán and San Luis Potosí. Some refer to her as "la Monja Roja del Mayab" (transl. 'the Red Nun of the Mayab').

Carrillo was born to a middle-class family in Motul, Yucatán. She became politically active by 1910, when she served as a courier and spy in the Valladolid Rebellion against dictator Porfirio Díaz and his favored candidate in the 1909 Yucatán gubernatorial election, Enrique Muñoz Arístegui. She founded the Liga Feminista Rita Cetina Gutiérrez in 1919, which advocated for various reforms, including birth control and literacy for rural women. In 1923, she was elected to the Yucatán legislature but fled during political unrest following the assassination of her brother, Yucatán Governor Felipe Carrillo Puerto. She also campaigned to become a deputy in San Luis Potosí's fourth district. Despite winning the popular vote, her victory was overturned on the grounds that women were ineligible for office.

In the late 1920s and 1930s, Elvia Carrillo Puerto advocated for women's suffrage and labor rights by organizing national conferences and working with feminist organizations such as the Frente Único pro Derechos de la Mujer (FUPDM. transl. 'Sole Front for Women's Rights'). However, she experienced financial hardship later in life, ultimately dying of bronchopneumonia in Mexico City in 1965. The Mexican Senate established the Elvia Carrillo Puerto medal in 2013 to honor women advocating for gender equality and women's rights, and she has been commemorated with several statues. She is recognized for her pivotal role in advancing women's rights and women's suffrage in Mexico.