Many of us giggled our way through the night laughing incredulously at the bizarre comment Mitt Romney made during last night’s debate about needing a “binder full of women” to diversify the ranks within his gubernatorial administration.
In moments a meme was started, but not only did it serve to add a visual to much of the flabbergasted electorate that was baffled by the comment and its seeming misogyny, not to mention Romney’s follow-up comments about offering women flexibility so that they could be home to get dinner on the table by 5pm — something women scoffed at with regard to Mitt’s seeming obtuseness when it comes to realistic work/life balance — but it opened the door for more questions about what was behind the need for more women.
Why couldn’t Romney find enough women to work with him? Surely, it wasn’t because there were just no qualified women out there that could fill some of those spots. No, we believe the reasoning goes a bit deeper, and peers more into who Mitt Romney actually is as a person.
It may come down to the fact that Mitt Romney has little to no interest in employing women and minorities. In fact, if you take a look at his demeanor during the debate last night, and the way in which he sneered, chided, and disrespected both the female moderator and the African-American President of the United States on more than one occasion, a good case could be made that Romney has issues with anyone who isn’t a successful white male.
As the Huffington Post reports, in 1994 the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts challenged Mitt Romney on this issue. The question was raised why there were so few women and minorities employed at Bain Capital? Huff Post notes, at the time, all 95 vice presidents of the firm were white, and only nine were women. Romney’s answer then was that there simply weren’t female applicants, which many of us who’ve ever done employment diversity research will tell you is the number one reason why companies with a history of a lack of diversity tout as the reason there are so few in their employ. Romney also blamed the profession, private equity, and said it didn’t “attract many women and minorities.” He also blamed the elite business schools, from which Bain recruited almost exclusively.
The statistics paint a different picture. In 1995 the Harvard Business School graduating class was almost 30 percent women. What the Boston Globe found that year when the questions emerged was:
“The team [Romney] put together to manage Bain Capital is exclusively white and male, all educated at the best business schools, mostly Harvard.”
Sen. Kennedy’s campaign went on to produce damning ads that confirmed Romney’s lack of desire to add diversity amongst his ranks at Bain, and it cost him women voters. So in 2002 when he ran for governor of Massachusetts he decided to play it smarter and selected a woman as a running mate. Which is interesting, because if he had no trouble finding a woman to be Lt. Governor, why then did he still have such a problem finding women for his administration requiring the need for those “binders full of women?” He said yet again, that he couldn’t find any women qualified enough. So that meant he hadn’t worked with any at Bain, or anywhere else for that matter, that would fit the bill? Romney claims to be such an accomplished businessman, in fact this is the crux of his whole spiel for becoming president, and in his entire career up until that point there was no one he could hire that didn’t come from a collection of candidates a women’s organization had to put together for him?
“It’s shocking to me that after 25 years of experience at the very highest levels of corporate America, Mitt Romney needed our help [to find qualified women],” Jesse Mermell, one of the women who helped prepare the “binders full of women” told Huff Post’s Jen Bendery on Wednesday.
This would all be more shocking if we didn’t see and hear Mitt Romney’s responses on women’s issues last night, and the way he evaded the questions about women receiving fair pay for their work.
We’ll say this to the women undecided voters out there who watched the debate last night — and whom we’ll add after the debate in the cable focus groups didn’t have a good answer to why it appeared Mitt Romney cared so little for issues that matter to women — “take a good long look at the man who was in that debate last night.” The guy who was rude and callous, calculating, full of arrogance and set to belittle and cut down those around him at the slightest provocation. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews called him that guy who won’t turn off his cell phone on an airplane, and the worst kind of boss you’ve ever had. Esquire‘s Charles P. Pierce said he had dueling alter egos — Snippy Willard and Dickhead Willard. Both of whom:
“Let his entitled, Lord-of-the-Manor freak flag fly on Tuesday night. He got in the president’s face. He got in Crowley’s face. That moment when he was hectoring the president about the president’s pension made him look like someone to whom the valet has brought the wrong Mercedes.
“You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.”
Yeah, this is the guy who is vying for the presidency. This sneering, jeering, hawkish, petty man, who basically had a tantrum on national television anytime he didn’t get his way. A bully and a nasty spoil sport who wouldn’t let anything go, and wanted to rub his opponent’s face in any perceived “zinger” to his detriment. But more importantly, he’s a guy who doesn’t hire women unless he has to, who believes the government should be able to have a say so in what women do with their bodies, and who doesn’t think you deserve to be paid equal to your male counterparts. BUT! He wants you to know that he understands your desire to be home early enough to put dinner on the table.
Hat-Tip to Commenter bobgeorge for the Esquire link.
Image: NY Daily News
