About those binders full of women . . .

Readers may remember Mitt Romney's comment last week that as Governor of Massachusetts, he asked his staff to find women qualified for vacant positions.

“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.’ And I said: ‘Well, gosh, can't we—can't we find some—some women that are also qualified?’ 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.”

There's more at the link.

Needless to say, the Internet has had a field day with his words.  Here, for example, is a compilation of images from the Daily Beast article linked above:

I particularly enjoyed the reaction of shoppers on Amazon.com.  They flooded an entry for 'Avery Durable View' binders with well over a thousand reviews, all on the theme of binders filled with women.  Here are a few examples.

I was originally going to rate this only 1 star. You see, I'm a big girl and I can only squeeze about 53% of myself into this binder. But then I decided that I'm not going to worry about the other 47%.

. . .

For any of you who might be considering, like me, purchasing this binder based on the reviews, let me just point out one glaring omission: While this is a lovely, multi-purpose binder, IT DOES NOT COME WITH WOMEN. Presumably one is expected to find women on one's own, or contact women's groups who are supposedly eager to help stock your empty binder with women.

. . .

I think that I shall never see
A binder lovelier than thee.
Full of women's names, the best
binder clutched against my breast;
This binder makes me feel like God,
When hiring gals for less-pay jobs,
A binder that my staff holds close,
Filled with women who can vote;
On whose careers we men have stood,
richer, 'cause, well, 'cause we could.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only Avery ...
made this really useful binder.

With apologies to Joyce Kilmer.

Again, there are many more at the link.





Peter