In a bind

As I am oft wont to say, God bless the Internet. The words “binders full of women” were hardly out of Mitt Romney’s (R-18^th Century) mouth before the meme was sweeping the Web.

During Wednesday’s debate Romney, the Republican presidential candidate representing the 17^th Century constituency, was trying to convey the idea that American women need not be concerned about things like access to healthcare, equal pay or protection from domestic violence under his hypothetical administration on account of some of his best minions have worn skirts and pumps to the office. Why, when he became Governor of Massachusetts he immediately decreed that his staff should go out to all the Commonwealth and bring him likely candidates.

Which they apparently did by the binderful.

(He also preened himself over the idea of allowing his female chief of staff to go home at 5 pm “for making dinner” for her family, a wholly Leave It to Beaver moment; but that hasn’t made the Internet rounds that I can see so far.)

Well, within 90 seconds of Romney’s classic phrase, Veronica De Souza, a 23-year-old social marketer who was laid off the very morning of the debate, had secured a tumblr URL Binders Full of Women, posted a graphic and the race was on. By bedtime she had more than 3000 followers, and she’s probably well into the five or six figures by now.

As with Princess Bea’s royal wedding hat and the iconic photo of the White House situation room during the takedown of Bin Laden, everyone with Photoshop and an ISP has been uploading graphics comments on the theme. Warning: once you start scrolling down, it’s going to be wicked hard to stop.

A couple of images that I’ve found on De Souza’s site and elsewhere:

(Okay—this last doesn’t relate directly to Romney’s performance this week; it’s from the debate earlier this month.)

But of course, the Twitterverse has been alive with the hashtag #bindersfullofwomen:

  

But the phenom isn’t limited to the strictly social networking milieu. Go to the customer reviews page for Avery Durable View Binder on Amazon, and take a gander at what the folks have to say about this totally new use for the old office standby. Some of the headings:

“Too small! Not enough room for nail polish and makeup!!!”

“In The Binder, But Still Unemployed”

“Soft, Durable, but Doesn’t Wash Windows”

“Life in the binder—it’s the good life!”

Okay—I have to give one of the full reviews:

“not satisfied”

“This binder when filled with women cannot be strapped to the roof of my car. Thus, I will continue to use the crate to transport women and am returning the binder for a 53% refund—the other 47% of its cost is attributable to victims and others who lack self-sufficiency. If that doesn’t make much sense, who cares? I have great hair. As Phil Johnson once said about Mitt, he was the Paris Hilton of Massachusetts politics.”

Thank you, Sophie Kaya.

BTW—same warning for the Amazon reviews page—once you get started you just keep going.

  

I’ll close by returning to Twitter and a comment from @BigBird:

“Romney wanted #bindersfullofwomen because binders full of men cost more. #EqualPayHisAss.”

True that.