Mitt Romney’s “binders full or women” comment is trending on social media, complete with new memes and even Twitter and Facebook accounts, and is seemingly bringing women’s issues front and center to the second presidential debate .
Romney said the phrase while he was answering a question about inequalities in the workplace and fair pay for women, reports The Washington Post . While President Barack Obama spoke about the Lilly Ledbtter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Romney took a different approach.
The Republican presidential candidate took a different route when answering the question, talking about his time at the governor of Massachusetts and how he wanted to hire both men and women for his cabinet. Romney stated:
“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.”
Romney’s “binders full of women” comment was certainly an awkward phrase and immediately took the same position that Big Bird did during the first presidential debate. Instead of the phrase being an acceptable answer to the question, it reminded some of when women wore girdles and women in China bound their feet as a status symbol that helped them marry into money.
For others, the phrase sounded like a great Halloween costume (how many women will be doubling as a binder in two weeks?). ABC News notes that, after the “binders full of women comment,” a Tumblr account was also created with an image of Hillary Clinton looking at a phone with the caption “Romney still uses binders? LOL.”
A freshly created Twitter account, @RomneysBinder wrote:
Boy, I’m full of women! #debates
— Romney’s Binder (@RomneysBinder) October 17, 2012
No comment on the rumors that Bill Clinton has already asked to borrow me. #debates
— Romney’s Binder (@RomneysBinder) October 17, 2012
By the end of the debate, @RomneysBinder had more than 30,000 followers with a second @Romneys_Binder netting more than 12,000 followers by the end of the debate.
What do you think of the Mitt Romney “binders full of women” comment? Do you have any good memes? Let us know!
