“That’s a bunch of malarkey!” and “Joe the Plumber” are just a couple of the phrases that have made headlines following presidential debates. No doubt, the phrase of last night’s debate was: “Binders full of women.” Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney made the comment while talking about pay equity, and it’s since become infamous. We’ve collected some of the best photos, tweets and responses to the Internet meme here:
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- The Associated Press distributed this photo, released by the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, of a binder produced in 2002 by the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project, listing names of potential female candidates for high-level positions in the state. Former Gov. Mitt Romney referenced the MassGAP notebook during the debate, when he said he was sent “binders full of women.”
- Veronica De Souza, a recent Hofstra University graduate, created a Binders Full of Women Tumblr after hearing Romney make the remark. Shortly before the debate, the 23-year-old found out she was going to be laid off from her job as social media manager at a tech startup, The Wall Street Journal reports. Here’s one of the images on her Tumblr:
- The hashtag #bindersfullofwomen was trending last night, and a handful of related Twitter accounts sprung up, including @BindersofWomen, @Romneys_Binder and @RomneyBinders — which has more than 33,000 followers. On Facebook, the “Binders Full of Women” page has more than 4,000 fans. The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog collected some funny tweets, including this one:
- As Politico reported, BindersFullofWomen.com (and .net) were “snatched up” soon after Romney made his comment.
- There’s even a song about the binder comment, and a “Romney binders game.”
- Republicans have been trying to seize control of the word “binder” and turn it into a metaphorical theme of Romney’s campaign, Talking Points Memo reports. The Romney campaign launched this video message in response to all the criticism.
- If you haven’t already, read this New York Magazine story by Ann Friedman: “Mitt didn’t ask for ‘binders full of women,’ but he should have.” In it, she raises an important point:
Boston journalist David Bernstein reports that while Romney did indeed find himself with a binder full of women’s names, it wasn’t something he requested. The binder was put together by MassGAP, a bipartisan group of women who joined forces in 2002 to push Romney’s incoming administration to hire more women. Did you catch that? The binder of women was assembled by women and pushed onto Romney’s desk, unsolicited. When we mock Romney’s reliance on it, we’re actually mocking a concerted strategy by an accomplished group of women to diversify their state government. Oops.
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