Undecided women voters who were watching the debate and participating in a focus group in Ohio reacted positively to Romney’s anecdote during dial-testing for CNN. When he and his staff ran into problems finding qualified female applicants to fill cabinet posts, Romney said he “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 just can’t connect with working women’ĭuring the debate at Hofstra University in New York, Romney, who worked in business before serving as governor of Massachusetts, said he “learned a great deal” about the inequalities between men and women in the workplace when leading his state. Romney responded on Twitter: “I understand the challenges women face and want to make it easier for them in the workplace.” “What I can’t understand is how he has gotten in this sort of 1950s time warp in terms of women,” he said. Vice President Joe Biden at a campaign event Wednesday in Greeley, Colorado, questioned where Romney’s comments were coming from. “We don’t have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, driven young women ready to learn and teach in these fields right now,” Obama told supporters in Mount Vernon, Iowa.

President Barack Obama was quick to use the “binders” line against Romney on the campaign trail Wednesday. Beth Myers has long held senior positions in Romney’s political campaign. The highest-ranking woman in his gubernatorial administration was his No. “First, Romney’s description of how he found female appointees sounded an awful lot like affirmative action, and someone will bring this up again.Īccusations, interruptions define bruising debateĪlso, the Twitterverse exploded with links to articles about how Bain Capital under Romney’s leadership didn’t have a female partner.” “Romney’s discussion of his promotion of women in his gubernatorial administration was … problematic,” said Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta. Some of the spiciest exchanges between the candidates in their second debate were over so-called “women’s issues.”

Binders Full of Women by Lana Cordova