"Binders Full of Women"

            Social media plays a part in society more than ever, especially in politics.  The way we express our political views in 2012 has taken a great step since 2008. Take memes, for example. Most of the time, people take something that a person said out of context, grabs a picture, and inserts a caption.

            The most recent example of this in politics comes from the second presidential debate when Romney spoke about “binders full of women.”

What Romney was saying was that he was looking for some qualified women to hire for his cabinet. The phrase “binders full of women” basically meant, “binders full of women’s resumes and profiles.” Some people understood this. Some did not. A number of people took this short phrase out of context, and turned it into a sexual innuendo. Some took it out of context and said that he was discriminating against women, saying that he described women as simply objects in a binder. Twitter exploded with tweets about it. Facebook pages were made. Memes were generated.

            And was Romney really discriminating against women? On the contrary, he was expressing the opposite. It just might not have been the best way to describe a group of women’s resumes.

            Did people go too far with this? Obama supporters have been waiting for something like this to occur. They have been trying to find some way to bash Romney because he had been doing very solidly in the debates and his campaign. It’s a close race.

            But is this really a big issue in politics and social media? I personally knew nothing about it until a day later. My Facebook feed said nothing.  It did not quite spread like wildfire. When friends brought it up, their opinion was that it’s a non-issue. It is just a phase that will soon pass on and be forgotten. And I believe this to be true as well.

            My personal opinion is that the response to “binders full of women” was exaggerated. People may have been offended, but not as much as they expressed. The negative responses have turned into a negative campaign against Romney. Will it affect the election? It just depends on how others respond to this issue. But it is not likely that it will affect much.