#LadyBanqueta, or #LadySidewalk in English, is the newest member of Mexico’s hashtag nobility.
The government of Villahermosa, Tabasco, has filed a lawsuit against a woman who they say deliberately walked on a freshly-poured concrete sidewalk, ignoring the shouts of workers as she left her footprints in the wet concrete.
Dumbfounded workers filmed the woman on their cell phones as she did so.
In an interview, Mayor Evaristo Hernández Cruz explained that the woman was upset because a step had not been placed in front of her business, whose floor was left somewhat high with the sidewalk upgrade.
“Some citizens do not want progress, they do not want the development of their area, and they do this type of thing,” he said. “It’s not right that someone wastes the resources that we have,” he added, saying her attitude was more harmful than the actual loss of workers’ time.
The term “Lady” is not a reference to royalty in Mexico, but rather an ironic designation earned by women of a certain class who choose to humiliate others in spectacular ways.
The woman joins the ranks of those shamed on social media when caught behaving outrageously, including last month’s #Lady3Pesos who was fired from her job at a real estate firm after she was filmed berating a Walmart security guard last month in the borough of Azcapotzalco in Mexico City.
That woman earned her nickname after she launched into an expletive-laden classist tirade against security personnel who refused to let her enter the store with her child, a policy clearly stated at the entrance of the store in order to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
She later apologized.
Last week an Argentinian woman who objected to the pruning of a tree in Mexico City was christened #LadyArgentina after she berated a woman filming her objections using racist insults. “You’re an Indian,” she proclaimed. “Do you know who you are? You are an Indian,” adding “film me, horrible Indian.”
Her words not only earned her disdain on social media but also the attention of immigration officials who, upon learning she had left the country, announced she would be barred from returning.
The woman, a tango instructor, offered a written apology, saying her words were unfortunate but taken out of context. “First of all, I want to sincerely apologize for calling the lady what I called her, and to all those who have been offended by my comment,” she wrote.
In June, #LadyPizza was born after a video surfaced of a woman attacking and threatening workers with a lengthy barrage of expletives at a Little Caesars pizzeria in Naucalpan, state of México, who did not want to serve her as she refused to wear a face mask.
The term “Lady” is believed to have first surfaced in Mexico in 2011 when a woman caught screaming insults at a police officer in Polanco was dubbed #LadyPolanco.
#Lord is another common hashtag, bestowed on men for similar behavior.
Source: El Universal (sp)
