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I was really surprised that Mitt's "Binders Full of Women" comment became such a hot meme so quickly. Some of the images are downright hilarious. Sadly though, most of them miss the real story behind the (yet another) "inelegantly stated" line.

When asked what he would do about women's pay inequality at the debate, Mitt deflected by saying (as governor of MA), "And I—and I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are—are all men....’ 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."

Besides the repulsive image that line brings to mind (even ignoring the Big Love connotation brought up by some of the meme images), there are a number of problems with this statement. First, it just isn't true. MassGAP, a women's advocacy group, issued a statement that appeared in the Washington Post, saying that they compiled a large list of capable women to address the problem they saw of not having enough senior female staff in government. Unfortuantely, Mitt didn't ask them to do this. They compiled this list in 2002, well before Mitt became governor, and then gave the list (unsolicited) to both finalist candidates for the MA governor's race prior to the final election. Nice of Mitt to take credit for someone else's work. Secondly, the binders apparently didn't help, because at the end of his term, there were actually fewer female senior staff than when he took office.

And of course, Mitt never actually answered the audience member's initial question of pay equity. Mitt has, for a year, repeatedly refused to say whether or not he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Act (even when asked point blank about it), which helps women fight pay inequality, or whether he would just repeal that as yet another "regulation strangling business". He had a golden opportunity last night to set the record straight, but chose to once again avoid it. But hey, at least he can be proud knowing his comment will live in internet infamy.

To (at least try to) give credit where it's due, Mitt's image by Charles Dharapak of AP. Some of the women from public domain images, and others found on google image search and had no credit cited.

Description
I was really surprised that Mitt's "Binders Full of Women" comment became such a hot meme so quickly. Some of the images are downright hilarious. Sadly though, most of them miss the real story behind the (yet another) "inelegantly stated" line.

When asked what he would do about women's pay inequality at the debate, Mitt deflected by saying (as governor of MA), "And I—and I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are—are all men....’ 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."

Besides the repulsive image that line brings to mind (even ignoring the Big Love connotation brought up by some of the meme images), there are a number of problems with this statement. First, it just isn't true. MassGAP, a women's advocacy group, issued a statement that appeared in the Washington Post, saying that they compiled a large list of capable women to address the problem they saw of not having enough senior female staff in government. Unfortuantely, Mitt didn't ask them to do this. They compiled this list in 2002, well before Mitt became governor, and then gave the list (unsolicited) to both finalist candidates for the MA governor's race prior to the final election. Nice of Mitt to take credit for someone else's work. Secondly, the binders apparently didn't help, because at the end of his term, there were actually fewer female senior staff than when he took office.

And of course, Mitt never actually answered the audience member's initial question of pay equity. Mitt has, for a year, repeatedly refused to say whether or not he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Act (even when asked point blank about it), which helps women fight pay inequality, or whether he would just repeal that as yet another "regulation strangling business". He had a golden opportunity last night to set the record straight, but chose to once again avoid it. But hey, at least he can be proud knowing his comment will live in internet infamy.

To (at least try to) give credit where it's due, Mitt's image by Charles Dharapak of AP. Some of the women from public domain images, and others found on google image search and had no credit cited.