Binders Full of Women

And – and so we – we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said: "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

  

This is the infamous quote that left Romney’s lips yesterday, October 16^th 2012, that made women across the country scowl at the presidential hopeful. In the second presidential debate, women's issues finally came up. And Mitt Romney had an opportunity to show female voters he cared. But from his bullying of moderator Candy Crowley to his dismissive description of his hiring practices, he fumbled the chance. “Binders full of women”, his badly chosen phrase became the meme of the night and will likely haunt him past Halloween.

An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I – and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are – are all men." They said: "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications."

Now I don’t know about you but last I check in 2003 (when Romney was building said cabinet) there were plenty of highly educated and more then qualified women he could have had placed onto his cabinet. This isn't the 1800's when women didn't even go to college.

But why did the phrase “Binders full of women” resonate? Because it was tone deaf, condescending and out of touch with the actual economic issues that women are so bothered about. The phrase objectified and dehumanized women. It played right into the perception that so many women have feared about a Romney administration – that a president Romney would be sexist and set women back. Because of Romeny and Ryan the rights of women are in jeopardy and the country is becoming more and more aware of it.

Segments and paraphrasing used from The Guardian