20 Most Famous Mexican Women

20 Most Famous Mexican Women

Originally published by  Faith on October 2023 and Updated by Beatrice J on May 2024

With all praise and credit going to Mexican women and their determination to fight for what they deserve, their status and standard of living have improved dramatically. As time passed, the Mexican women proved to be warriors by going to extreme lengths to improve things for themselves and future generations.

Mexico is a nation renowned for its rich cultural legacy and colourful history, and over time, many outstanding women have become key figures in Mexican society. The women have made a difference in a wide range of professions from trailblazing artists to passionate activists. 

In addition to everything else we’ve mentioned we cannot forget how beautiful their women are. Mexican women are known for their beauty and fashion sense, and they dominate beauty pageants and even Victoria’s Secret Angels.

1. Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo. Photo by Guillermo Kahlo. Wikimedia Commons

Frida Kahlo is a Mexican feminist icon and artist, best known for her folk art paintings depicting women’s strength. Frida, despite her unconventional lifestyle, chose to live out loud rather than in the shadows.

Her youth bus accident left her with lifelong physical pain, but she persevered as an artist. Frida Kahlo became the first Mexican artist to have a surrealist painting purchased by the Louvre, making her the museum’s first Mexican artist. She attended numerous expos in the United States and Mexico.

She was a communist and an activist as well. Her art and life were realistic, raw, and depictive of Mexican traditions. Frida’s feminist empowerment continues to have an impact on future generations.

2. Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek. Photo by Harald Krichel. Wikimedia Commons

Salma Hayek, the world’s most famous Mexican actress, was born on September 2, 1966, to a wealthy family in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in eastern Mexico. She is of Lebanese and Spanish descent.

Hayek entered the United States illegally and lived there for a short time. She moved to Hollywood and appeared in films such as Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, Wild Wild West, Dogma, and Tale of Tales before landing her breakthrough role in Frida in 2002.

For her role as Frida Kahlo in the aforementioned biographical film, she became the first Mexican actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Hayek and her French mogul husband, François-Henri Pinault, have a daughter. She advocates for women’s rights and raises awareness about immigrant discrimination.

3. Mariana Bayón

Begobayon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mariana was the cover star and model of an editorial for the Mexican edition of Glamour. Mariana is most known for winning Mexico’s Next Top Model’s first-ever season.

In addition, Shock Modelling, one of the top modelling agencies in Mexico, offered Bayón a contract worth $100,000 plus representation. Additionally, she was given a Sears gift card worth MX$20,000 and excursions from Sedal and Volaris to San Francisco and London.

4. Rosario Castellanos

Castellanos is regarded as one of Mexico’s most important 20th-century poets. Her writing often concentrates on her own experience as a woman in Mexico since she is deeply concerned with the lives of women and their problems inside male-dominated cultures. She was a professor, activist, poet, and even an ambassador to Israel. She also left behind a body of work that is significant to the Mexican poetry community.

5. Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa became the world’s first Hispanic woman in space on April 8, 1993. Ochoa spent nine days aboard the Discovery shuttle conducting vital research into the Earth’s ozone layer. Ochoa has gone on three more space flights since that ground-breaking moment, totalling 1,000 hours in space.

As if her first trailblazing mission wasn’t enough, Ochoa was named the first Hispanic and second female director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in 2013.

6. Dolores Huerta

Farmworkers in the early twentieth century, most of whom were Central American immigrants, had a hard, painful, and unjust life, doing back-breaking work under the unforgiving sun and sleeping in rough shacks with dozens of men to a room for below-poverty wages. That is until Dolores Huerta and others like her entered the picture. Huerta founded the United Farm Workers in 1965, an organization that worked tirelessly to improve farmworkers’ working conditions. Huerta was instrumental in bringing about legislation that protects some of our society’s most vulnerable people by leading boycotts, picketing, protesting, and lobbying.

7. Selena

The artist known as ‘Selena,’ born Selena Quintanilla on April 16, 1971, in Texas, was a pop superstar who popularized Mexican Tejano music. She is regarded as one of the most influential Latin artists of all time, having received a Grammy in 1993 and a gold record in 1994 with Amor Prohibido.

Selena was one of the few Mexican pop stars to break into the mainstream, alongside Rita Moreno and Gloria Estefan. She was tipped to be the next Madonna, but her career was tragically cut short when she was shot by the president of her fan club over a disagreement about the latter’s embezzlement of Selena’s company money. A nation mourned the death of this lost talent with the posthumous release of her final album.

8. Maite Perroni

Maite Perrone Beorlegul, also known by the stage name Maite Perroni, is a Mexican-born actress, singer, composer, fashion designer, and producer. She got one of the lead roles in Rebelde, a well-known telenovela, after finishing a two-year acting programme.

RBD, a pop band that disbanded in 2008, was where she began her musical career. Eclipse de Luna, Perroni’s debut solar album, was published a few years later, in 2013. Since then, she has released a few more songs, but most of her career is now devoted to acting in films and serving as the spokesmodel for NYX cosmetics.

9. Joan Baez

Joan Baez. Photo by Ron Kroon / Anefo. Wikimedia Commons

Joan Baez, the legendary folk singer, passionate anti-war activist, civil rights activist, and a powerful, unforgettable singer-songwriter. Baez is probably best known for her relationship with Bob Dylan, but it was her human rights activism, breathtaking voice, and never-ending fight for justice for the marginalized and oppressed that secured her place in history.

From the backs of flatbed trucks in Mississippi to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963, Joan Baez sang about freedom and civil rights everywhere.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid a visit to Baez, who was imprisoned at Santa Rita for blocking the Armed Forces Induction Center entrance in Oakland. He spent about an hour with the singer before making an impromptu speech to a group of protesters outside the prison.

10. Tessy María López Goerne

López Goerne, one of Mexico’s most well-known scientists, is in charge of creating a potential gel that might be used to cure diabetic feet. She also serves as the director of the nanotechnology and nanomedicine laboratories at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. She underwent cancer treatment, suffered a stroke, and was still nominated for the Chemistry Nobel Prize and got many awards for her services to research.

11. Dr. France Córdova

Dr. France Córdova. Photo by National Science Foundation. Wikimedia Commons

Nobody expected France Córdova to become an astrophysicist, but she did, and much more. She is a science and education leader, a wife, a mother, and a visionary. France Córdova, a cheerful woman with a twinkle in her eye, was the first Hispanic woman to serve as Chancellor of a University of California campus. She was also the youngest and first woman to be appointed as NASA’s Chief Scientist.

Later on, she became the chancellor of Purdue University, and she has been the Director of the National Science Foundation since 2014, after being nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the United States Senate. She was a writer before she became a scientist, and the spark that set her on a new path was the same: a desire to understand deeply, solve mysteries, and help humanity.

12. Norma Romero Vázquez

Vázquez is the director of Las Patronas, a Veracruz-based organisation that provides food to 150 Central American migrants per day as they travel through Mexico within the well-known cargo train known as La Bestia (“The Beast”). Every day, Vázquez’s organization’s challenging and perilous job saves lives, and in 2013, she received Mexico’s National Human Rights Award.

13. Silvia Torres-Peimbert

IAU, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Torres-Peimbert is the first Mexican woman to hold a doctorate in astronomy. She has received recognition for her work in figuring out the chemical makeup of nebulae and researching the formation of stars and the mass ejected by medium-sized stars. She served as the previous editor of the crucial Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and from 2015 to 2018 she served as the second woman to lead the International Astronomical Union.

14. Julia Constanza Burgos Garca

Julia Constanza Burgos Garca was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico in 1914. De Burgos, a successful published poet in her native Puerto Rico, struggled to gain recognition after moving to the United States in the 1930s. Her poems praised the beauty of her homeland and celebrated her identity as an immigrant black Latina — all of which were unusual in early twentieth-century poetry circles.

De Burgos’ scintillating poems, written decades before their time, centre on themes of feminism and social justice, paving the way for many Latino writers to follow.

15. Maria Elena Salinas

Maria Elena Salinas is the longest-running female news anchor on American television, and she is the first Latina to receive a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. The New York Times dubbed Salinas the “Voice of Hispanic America,” and she has become a figurehead for the Mexican community. “I am grateful for having had the privilege to inform and empower the Mexican community through the work my colleagues and I do with such passion,” she said of her departure from her current position at Univison. “As long as I have a voice, I will always use it to speak on their behalf,” she said, thanking her Latino audience. She has always used her platform to discuss issues affecting Latinos.

16.Elsa Ávila

Elsa Ávila is famous for being the first Latin American woman to climb to the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. She did this on May 5, 1999. This accomplishment has etched her name in the annals of mountaineering history.

Originating from Mexico, Elsa embarked on her mountaineering journey at the tender age of 15. Her climbing resume includes impressive feats such as scaling El Capitán in Yosemite National Park, peaks in the Rockies, the Alps, the Andes, the Himalayas, and Patagonia.

Beyond the mountainous terrains, Elsa has navigated significant health challenges. In 2002, she underwent a pacemaker implantation to address cardiac deficiencies. Despite these health concerns, she persisted in her climbing pursuits, notably ascending Pico de Orizaba, the tallest peak in Mexico, in 2012.

17.Lydia Cacho

Lydia Cacho is a famous journalist from Mexico who stands up for women and children. She’s known for her brave work, writing about serious issues like abuse and violence. Lydia was born in Mexico City on April 12, 1963.

She started caring about helping others when she was young, going with her mom to help in poor areas. At 23, Lydia got very sick with kidney problems, but she got better and started writing for newspapers in Cancún.

She first wrote about art, but soon she began to write about how women are treated badly, because she wanted to make a difference. In 1999, Lydia was attacked, which she thinks was because of her writing. She didn’t give up, though; she opened a place to help women who were hurt the next year.

18.Katy Jurado

Katy Jurado, born María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García, was a trailblazing Mexican actress. Her mark in the industry was during the 1950s and 1960s. Born on January 16, 1924, in Mexico City, she grew up in a well-off family until political changes led to the loss of their property.

Despite these challenges, Katy pursued acting, a passion ignited by her beauty and talent, which caught the attention of filmmakers early on. She married young to gain independence and further her acting career, debuting in the film No matarás in 1943.

Katy’s breakthrough came with the film High Noon, earning her a Golden Globe.

19.Elena Poniatowska

Elena Poniatowska, who was born in Paris and moved to Mexico as a child, is a highly respected journalist and writer. She’s famous for addressing the struggles of the less privileged and women in her work.

Starting her career at a young age, she became known for her book The Night of Tlatelolco, which tells the story of the tragic 1968 student protests in Mexico City. Her progressive views have earned her the nickname the Red Princess, and she remains an influential figure in literature.

20.María Félix

María Félix, also known as La Doña, was a legendary actress from Mexico’s cinematic golden era. Her striking looks and formidable character made her a beloved and iconic diva.

Her impressive filmography includes 47 movies in various countries. A muse to her composer husband Agustín Lara, she inspired the song María Bonita. Félix’s legacy transcends acting, influencing music, art, and fashion, and she remains a cultural icon.