The Binder Sex

Hey, everyone, wait up! I’m running as fast as I can! I want to jump on the “Mitt Romney ‘Binders Full of Women’ Gaffe Bandwagon” before this news cycle ends! So please, wait up!

It’s amazing what we all learned this week from the second Presidential debate! For those of you who didn’t stay up, a woman asked the candidates what they would do about pay inequity between men and women, or that old issue where men get paid more than women even though both prospective job candidates have the same qualifications.

When this was a major plank in the ERA movement (way back in the 70s), women were estimated to be making 49 cents for every dollar a man earned. Now, allegedly, women are making 72 cents for every man-earned dollar. This means that either a) a women’s value in the workplace has increased by 23 cents or b) the whole argument has been adjusted for inflation! (I know, that was a cheap shot!) Either way, many women (and many progressive thinking blog writers like moi) still believe that a problem exists.

Obama could rightly claim that he signed the Lily Ledbetter Act, which evened the playing field for women seeking justice about unequal wages, and he did so in answering this woman’s question. Romney launched into a long reminisce about his first days as governor when he noticed not many women were applying for jobs in his cabinet, and how he directed his aides to seek out qualified females to diversify his choices, and how they reached out to many groups to get the names of qualified women, and how the Romney folks were given lists so large that they had to be put into 3-ring binders (at least that’s we believe Romney meant to say), and how - and this is the important part - he managed to come NOWHERE NEAR ANSWERING THE GODDAMN QUESTION!

Instead, he gave us liberals a beautiful gaffe: how he was given “binders full of women” to peruse in his search for qualified female job applicants.  Is this similar to a bucketful of broads (a favorite of the original Rat Pack, or so my friends tell me), or perhaps a cache chock full of chicks?

I never realized that women came wrapped in binders! I always believed that females were to be treated with courtesy and in every way we would like to be treated as human beings! Now I find out differently from Romney! Treating women like human beings? What the hell was I thinking?

(EDITOR'S NOTE:  Watch it, bub!)

Imagine, I could have had all the women I ever wanted if I only had known to go to my local office supply store and ask the clerk, “Hey, I would like a binder full of women, please…to go!” Imagine, all those years subscribing to Playboy wasted! Who needs photographs when you can get the real thing at Staples (insert trademark thingy here)?

Oooooh, I wonder if the binders have an assortment of women in each folder? Of course, there has to be one of each: long-legged blonde, long-legged brunette, long-legged redhead, different nationalities like Italian or French, ethnicities like Hispanic or Asian…

Oooooh, that reminds me: where are these binders assembled? Here in the good ole USA (yeah, fat chance) or (more likely) China? And if they are assembled in China, who will vouch for their quality? I mean, who’s to say that one day on the assembly line - inside one of those company towns that sleep ten workers to a room, encased in barbed wire topped fencing to prevent unemployed workers from breaking in (yeah, right) - that one of those workers doesn’t jump inside one of the binders, wrap themselves in cellophane, and escape beyond the Chinese border?  

Oooooh, and how are the contents attached? The traditional binder comes with three (usually metal) rings which can be separated so that papers can be fastened inside when the rings are inserted through a pre-punched hole and closed shut. Some have wondered if women fastened in such a way would feel any pain if a metal ring is poked through one of their limbs so they can be transported safely from the point of manufacture to the point of purchase. The answer is “Yes, of course it hurts!” Did you ever have a metal ring pinched through your muscle and bone? Not a very pretty feeling, isn’t it?

However, we could console ourselves with the fact that women can endure great amounts of pain. After all, they do withstand the rigors of childbirth, right? And they do, more often than men, pierce different body parts for decoration. They pierce ears, noses, lips, tongues, belly buttons and other parts further south! Surely there is some pain associated with these adornments.  

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Not to mention the great amount of pain putting up with men! But please continue, arteejee!)

Again, I say, “Oooooh, oooooh, oooooh” at the thought of purchasing readily accessible pulchritude that I can carry around anywhere! 

Yes, this weekend I shall do it! I shall enter into an office supply store and order binders full of women! Lots of binders with lots of women in each! I can hardly wait….

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Fear not, blogisphere! Arteejee will not set foot inside any retail establishment this weekend, because Arteejee will be getting a serious time out!)

(Thank you for reading. Any resemblance between this work of satire and actual chauvinistic ideals are purely coincidental. In other words, “I’m just kidding, ladies!”)