Señora Juanita
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Señora Juanita (diminutive of Juana) is a name used for the average Chilean, and specially the older women from the countryside (in the manner of Britishman John Bull).[citation needed] A typical usage is: "How would you explain that to Señora Juanita?" (¿Cómo le diría eso a la Señora Juanita?).[citation needed] An example of the name used in this generic way can be seen in the title of this paper from the Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile: Estimando la demanda residencial por electricidad en Chile: a doña Juanita le importa el precio (Calculating the residential demand for electricity in Chile: Mrs. Jones does care about the price).[1]
On February 26, 2004, President Ricardo Lagos coined the term during a press conference addressing the issue of telephone and drinking water rate setting, explaining the scope of the proposal as follows: "What I am trying to tell Mrs. Juanita, who knows little about international finance, is that in the bill she will pay for public services, there will be a decrease."[2] He used it again during the Public Account speech on May 21 of the same year,[3] and since then various political sectors have used it in their arguments.[4]