According to this Dutch article: nos.nl in the States there is a lot of stir about Romney's "Binders full of women". Is this true?

In the Netherlands we would just ignore this, or at the most say "did he just tried to be funny?"?

I'm not adding anyone, I'm interested in who wants to join!

*anyone from the start

Yes, it's true! It's mostly on social media, but it was sadly enough not even an attempt at being funny, though it ended up being funny anyway.

The female vote is pretty undecided this election (When Romney did really well in the last debate, he skyrocketed in polls largely because undecided women went strongly in his favor.) and the candidates were taking a question about fair-pay-for-equal-work / the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Romney said that when he was governor of Massachusetts, he had to search really hard to find qualified female candidates (He is sort of a prototypical American businessman, so this also comes off as kind of unbelievable.) and when they finally found them, he had "binders full of women" qualified for the job.

A lot of the reason that it's funny comes from Romney being a typical businessman/executive/macho-man figure who is super unlikable to start.

He should have just said there were lots of great women who were qualified and instead it came out as this really horrible, emotionally detached metaphor.

I watched the debate (they are really bad debaters!), and really didn't saw this coming. But that's probably because I was shocked that you guys only have a equal-pay-act since this or last year (it's in article one of the Dutch constitution).

How is it even possible that when Romney took office in Massachusetts he got a list with only men on it? Or do you think this was fake?

I guess I'm getting why there's fuss about in the US, although it's unthinkable here as we even have a party in parliament that wants to forbid women to work and vote and even there's almost none fuss about.

So thanks for the explanation, now I can explain it to my fellow Dutchies. :)

Ah, some other people who wants to join, please help me getting it even better.

Raimond,
I did a Google translate of the article you linked to, and I think part of the confusion could be coming from the line: "The (statement) was considered demeaning" (is this an accurate translation?)

I don't think anyone found the binder comment itself to be demeaning (although Romney's answer as a whole was certainly construed as demeaning towards women in the workplace).

It's also interesting that the comment itself wasn't particularly funny (he didn't misspeak, or make some other gaffe)

Instead, the statement "binders full of women" seemed to open up lots of other potential follow on jokes. There were Bill Clinton jokes (related to his infamous womanizing): quickmeme.com

(continued)

It's mostly funny because the literal words that he said, "binders full of women," conjure up an image that is very funny.

the reaction to the statement was amplified because it was coming from a candidate who doesn't have strong support with women and doesn't have as strong a record on "women's issues" (like equal pay). it's a bit like if Romney had said something like "i'm not racist! i have lots of black friends!", with the very statement itself showing how the speaker doesn't really understand what the issue is about.

Jokes about Romney's Mormonism (binders full of women = polygamy joke)

Jokes about Romney still using binders (portrays him as someone who is not technically savvy), tied to the "texts from Hilary" meme: 25.media.tumblr.com

Lots of people tweeted about dressing up as "binders of women" for halloween.

And above all else, just a general sense, as Libby mentioned, that Romney comes off as out of touch and robotic.

So it was less about the statement having one funny connotation, and more about the humor around the cultural context of the statement.

Hope that was helpful... Basically, American politics are great Twitter and meme fodder ;)

@Will Yes that's a great translation, and the conclusion of the first version of the article (it's updated since I read it a few hours ago).

They are repeating the statement on Dutch TV now, and I'm getting why the "binders full"-statement is demeaning, but I thought he just tried to say imply the opposite.

I just thought that was Biden, instead of Clinton.. ;)

@Quinten I think those memes are genius! And the Hilary one seems to be true, sadly. I'm not really getting the halloween thing (we don't have halloween here), so could you explain that one?

on halloween people in the US dress up in costumes, like witches, spiderman, etc. but a lot of people like dressing up as funny costumes. since the "binders full of women" meme is blowing up right now and lots of people know about it, people (women mostly, i guess) are talking about going dressed as a binder that has a woman inside of it.

@Will I got the first part, but they are really trying to go as binders? Halloween is the 31th right? I'm looking forward to see pictures of this, would be hilarious!

I might! Branch is working in a big office shared by a few companies, but because it's technology there are only about 5 women in the whole space. Traditionally, Halloween is for kids and is celebrated by "trick or treating" — going from house to house in costumes and asking for candy — but sometimes American offices have days on or near Halloween where employees come to work dressed up, too. If Branch's office (Betaworks) does this, I think the group of us will make a binder costume for fun.

I think it may be difficult to appreciate the debates from outside the US- I moved here a few years ago and could write essays about how differently politicians are perceived compared to Europe.

It's very rare that a candidate wins a debate based on their own strengths- they win because the other candidate makes a mistake. So people are hyper-sensitive to any slight misstep, and in the Twitter age that means instant meme-ification. The comedy really comes from Romney attempting to take a progressive, women-friendly stance, only to phrase his answer in a way that sounded like the exact opposite. It's great meme fodder because it's obvious that it was a misstep, and not a real, controversial, opinion.

Not to explain a joke, but I think the comment was funny on a technical level. Romney didn't say "binder full of resumes from qualified women," he said "binder full of women," which is a pretty funny image if you take it literally (stuffing a bunch of women in a binder), as Will points out. I think that point could easily be lost in translation.

I do agree with Quinten that the comment wasn't demeaning, per se, but it was insulting because, as Libby said, it struck a cultural note.

Business in this country has a (deserved) reputation of being unfair to women, and Romney's response was both dehumanizing and suggestive of the fact that there aren't enough qualified women, which is absurd given US college graduation rates (way more women).

@Libby There should be Halloween in the Netherlands, sounds fun!

@Alastair I hear a lot about that but wasn't really getting it until this branch (although I started getting it when I watched the debate last night, it was really boring comparing to the UK and Dutch ones). Seeing this, I think that US-politics are interesting, but nothing to be proud of. But that's a different discussion.

@Gabriel Okay, so it's really the literal meaning that started the fuss?

The problem with businesses (and governments) hiring less way women than men is sadly a global issue. And we should do something about this, without hiring women because it gives a great view (that's what the Dutch Labour party wants to do).

@Raimond - 1 point for America on holidays. 1 point for Europe on debates.

@Libby Don't forget the point for America for creating the opportunity to start Branch. In Europe, start-up's are kinda dead.

@Raimond I wouldn't be so down on US politics. There are many problems with it (as there is anywhere), but the level of engagement over here is higher than anything I saw back home-everyone seems to be talking about the election, and there are viewing parties (...and drinking games..) for the debates.

It's inspiring... but also depressing, because it makes it even clearer how polarised many people are.

@Raimond: it's both the literal meaning and what it symbolized. If it hadn't been said in such bizarrely objectifying language, it would still have been criticized, but it wouldn't have taken off to this degree.

@Alastair Okay, in NL only ~65% of the voters actually vote so we have little engagement. The polarizing was and still is in the Netherlands thanks to the mister Wil ders of the far-right Freedom Party. When he was 'accepting' the government we had an anti-foreigners government, which was really scary.

@Gabriel Okay, so it might even come out well for Romney that the literal meaning is funny?

No, exactly the opposite. I think the funny phrasing made the answer stand out and gave people a short, simple phrase to latch onto, which hurt Romney more than if he had given a less interesting answer.

Okay, great. I'm starting to fully getting it. Do you guys think it really hurts Romney or is it just a flaw in his campaign (yes, flaws are a problem, but not really big I guess?)?

Not even really a flaw in the campaign, just a silly gaffe.

It will probably hurt him a little bit, but only in the context of not having done well in the rest of the debate either (which, as @Alastair noted, is a function of several of these small, quotable missteps adding up more than his performance being worse overall). He'll probably lose points with women specifically because this quote of his is everywhere.

Related, I'm sure there's data on this somewhere but haven't looked it up.

Okay, I'm getting it - I guess.

I think it plays into a flaw in his campaign, which is that his proposed policies aren't particularly friendly to women, and current polling indicates that women support Obama over him by a decent margin. Will this one comment hurt him a lot? No. But it in no way helps him and it might serve to remind some women voters who are on the fence that he doesn't have much to offer when it comes to "women's issues."

@Raimond - To clarify: By "data," I mean that there are several organizations who poll samples of Americans nearly every day leading up to the election and extrapolate what that means about preferences among various groups. They report their findings mostly in percentages — "Romney is up 6% with undecided women who are likely to vote," "Obama is down 1% in southern states," etc.

People pay a lot of attention to those numbers as they are usually fairly good predictors of voter opinion, but they change all the time and so they become especially important when they can give a quantitative answer to "How did Romney do in the debate last night?"

Google Gallup polls and look at News for more information related to last night if you're curious!

@Libby Ah! That kind off data, I saw a few off them. Didn't know of Google Gallup, so I will give it a look.

@Raimond - They're Gallup polls, but if you google them, information about their most recent data will show up :) Like this:

Oh right.. Thanks!

Stepping back, I question why Gov R even started this story in the first place (about trying to hire females into the Mass govt). It struck me as a lame attempt to appeal to undecided female voters and quickly became *almost* as popular as the Big Bird reference.

I personally thought it was to distract from him not supporting equal-pay, but I don't know for sure.

The Big Bird fuss I did get, if they would stop the Dutch Sesame Street or Pino (the blue dutch version of big bird) in the Netherlands the Parliament would stop it. They even tried to prevent a change of time schedule for Sesame Street.

PINO! Oh my god. Who knew? That's so awesome.

@Libby Pino does exists in the US version of Sesame Street?

Guys, I'm going to sleep, I'll catch on later if this branch is still branching then (I hope it is).

This may have already been said, but it stuck in our craw because it was just such a tone-deaf way to address a real issue. The issue is women having equal opportunity to high paying jobs and being paid the same wage as men who perform the same work. (I agree, this is a global issue) Mitt's "binders full of women" reference just makes light of what has been a long struggle for many talented women and references his earlier "they consider themselves victims" comment. He wouldn't say "binders full of Jews" or "binders full of black people".

And the truth is, MassGAP was preparing a list of good women candidates in 2002 before Mitt was elected governor. And under his tenure women appointments to government jobs went from 42% to 27%.

He actually did say that (victims-statement)?

Okay, so he says his different, but his just acting like most of the men?

Most of the men of a specific slice of society & age bracket. More and more men have been raised by single moms who they watched scuffle to make ends meet. These men are entirely sympathetic to this issue and I think it strikes hollow with them as well.

Raimond, that's a fair assessment. He is basically trying to do what he can to appeal to undecided, women voters and in order to do so has to present some sort of "progressive workforce" face to their demographic. However, it came off as a ham-fisted attempt and underscores how out of touch he is. He is the prototypical definition of the wealthy, white, corporate American male. Only he knows what his true mindset is on the issue, but the presentation comes off as something that belongs in the corporate boardroom of the 1960s, not the 2010s.

So, even if it's unbelievable. Nice..

The presentation issue is a good one, but it's sadly still common in this world.

I think it's time to close this branch, and I'd like to do that with a tweet of Libby, as the remix is a great closer.
twitter.com

Cheers!