Romney and Women: He Didn't Bind Them

     Someone else did that. It turns out that the female promotions he's been taking credit for were not done at his initiative:

     "Mitt Romney's story about culling "binders full of women" in order to make sure there were women in his cabinet in Massachusetts didn't happen quite like he said it did in Tuesday's town hall debate, the Washington Post's Greg Sargent reports.

The tale isn’t quite how he told it, according to Liz Levin, the chair of a women’s group that was right in the middle of the story at the time.
In fact, Levin tells me, the groups initiated contact with him and urged him to hire more women — when he was still a candidate — and began creating the binders themselves on their own initiative before he took office. In fairness to Romney, she says, he did agree to work with them…
“He did not initiate our project,” Levin says. “He was the recipient of a project we put together.”
 

       http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/romneys-binders-full-of-women-wasnt-his-initiative

       This rather awkward coinage of Romney's has gone viral just like his infamous coming down on Big Bird. This was one of the few things Romney could point to in terms of what he's done for women. Turns out he didn't bind them. Of course "binding" is yet another "inelegant" coinage of the Governor's that has, yet again, put him in a bind:

       "Romney said the phrase while answering a question that first went to President Barack Obama about inequalities in the workplace and fair pay for women. Obama answered the question by focusing on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which he signed into law."

       "Romney took a different route in answering the question. He talked about his time as Massachusetts governor and how he wanted to hire some women – and not all men – for his cabinet.
“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 needed help finding women for posts. There were no women in at the top of the all-male Bain Capital. “Binders Full Of Women” was certainly an awkward phrase to say and it failed to even work as an answer to the question. Instead, it reminded people of a time when women wore girdles or women in China bound their feet as status symbol that allowed them to marry into money. For some, it sounded like a great idea for a Halloween costume."

     "And like Big Bird, it became an instant meme."