"Binders full of women" is a phrase that was used by

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

on October 16, 2012, during the

second U.S. presidential debate of 2012 The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) held four debates for the 2012 U.S. presidential general election, slated for various locations around the United States in October 2012 – three of them involving the major party preside ...

. Romney used the phrase in response to a question about

pay equity Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full ...

, referring to

ring binder Ring binders (loose leaf binders, looseleaf binders, or sometimes called files in Britain) are large folders that contain file folders or hole punched papers. These binders come in various sizes and can accommodate an array of paper sizes. The ...

s with

résumé A résumé, sometimes spelled resume (or alternatively resumé), also called a curriculum vitae (CV), is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of re ...

s of female job applicants submitted to him as

governor of Massachusetts The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces. Massachusetts ...

. The phrase was depicted by Romney's detractors and the Obama campaign as demeaning and insensitive toward women and was widely mocked. This prompted the phrase's use for political attacks on Romney's positions on "

women's issues Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male poi ...

", as well as the development of an

Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

. The comment was used as part of a larger accusation of ''tone deafness'' against Romney, including his comments regarding women needing support so that they could get home each day to cook dinner for their families.

Description

When asked about

for women at the debate, Romney said, "I had the chance to pull together a

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

, and all the applicants seemed to be men. ..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." Even while the debate was ongoing, comedic commentary about the phrase had begun to be published online.

Reactions

Internet meme

By the day after the debate, a

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

blog and posts had been creating illustrated commentary on the phrase, tweets and original works of art had been produced, and a

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page about "Binders Full of Women" had received 274,000 likes.

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

received a barrage of

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

reviews for generic

binders Ring binders (loose leaf binders, looseleaf binders, or sometimes called files in Britain) are large folders that contain file folders or hole punched papers. These binders come in various sizes and can accommodate an array of paper sizes. The ...

, with thousands of users marking the reviews as "helpful", moving them to the top of the review pages. A parody

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account that portrayed itself as a binder owned by Romney attracted 30,000 followers before the debate was even over. At a campaign stop

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

referenced the phrase: "I've got to tell you, we don't have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women". ''The Washington Post'' stated that "Mitt Romney's 'binders full of women' comment during the second presidential debate did more than

go viral Viral phenomena or viral sensation are objects or pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of ...

; it put women's issues back in the campaign spotlight."

MassGAP response

Romney's statement that he was the one who initiated the recruitment of so many women was challenged by MassGAP, a coalition of women's groups affiliated with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus. The coalition issued a statement saying that they had approached both Romney and his opponent's campaigns prior to the election to ask for a commitment to appoint more women to address underrepresented women in Massachusetts' government. The group compiled the names of female applicants and offered them to both Romney and his Democratic opponent

Shannon O'Brien Shannon Patricia Elizabeth O'Brien (born April 30, 1959) is an American politician and attorney who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1987 through 1993, in the Massachusetts Senate from 1993 through 1995, and was the Massa ...

before the election.

Legacy

On February 25, 2013, the game show ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'' referenced the meme with a category titled "A Binder Full of Women". The clues were about famous or powerful women. In 2017, a former Romney aide recovered the binders Romney was referring to and gave them to ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

''. Also in 2017, Charles C. W. Cooke of ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...

'' criticized media coverage of the scandal, saying that "I am yet to hear an explanation of what was wrong with Romney’s line that isn’t wholly incoherent." On June 5, 2019, the phrase “binders full of women” was used in the television show ''The Handmaid’s Tale''. In Season 3, Episode 3 of the

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

series, Commander Joseph Lawrence says: “Binders full of women.” Considering the show’s

dystopian A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

genre and premise (in which The United States is largely overtaken and replaced with Gilead, a

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic votin ...

regime), the inclusion of this phrase in the fictional show’s script is a satirical nod to the real-life phrase used by Romney.

References

External links

Video of Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Binders full of women 2012 in American politics 2012 in women's history 2012 United States presidential debates American political catchphrases Internet memes introduced in 2012 Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign Political Internet memes Political quotes United States presidential debates Works by Mitt Romney