Mitt Romney drew some unwelcomed attention during the presidential debate Tuesday night when he said that as governor of Massachusetts, he was so disappointed at the low numbers of women serving in the cabinet that he sent out for "binders full of women."
"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," he said.
Romney added that after he filled his Cabinet and senior staff, the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that his staff had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state.
While 42 percent of Romney's appointments during his first two and a half years as governor were women, the number of women in high-level appointed positions actually declined to 27.6 percent during his full tenure as governor, according to a 2007 MassGAP study.
The term "Binders full of women" has gone viral on the internet with even its own Tumblr site, which features an array of visuals including a Trapper Keeper -- a binder of yore, for those too cool to remember -- emblazoned with a single word in pink neon: "Women." The site also shows a photo of Hillary Rodham Clinton, wearing sunglasses, with a bubble out of her mouth that says, "Romney still uses binders? LOL."
A twitter account has also been created (@Romneys_Binder), which attracted over 12,300 followers by the debate's end and the Facebook page Binders Full Of Women, which had over 32,000 likes by the time the time moderator Candy Crowley concluded the event.
