Oct 24, 2012 4 min read

In 1975 I was copy editor for the University of Pittsburgh’s School of General Studies student newspaper, The Night Times. In this role I witnessed a verbal battle between the paper’s editor-in-chief and a female staffer over what was then called a “women’s lib” issue. The argument began when the female staffer, proofing pages that had to go that night to the printer, discovered what she deemed a word offensive to women. The sentence follows; see if you can find the offensive word: “Everyone should bring his picnic basket.” If you picked the word “his,” you are a person of rare perception. Or, maybe, just a reactionary prig, like her. The female staffer insisted that to avoid demeaning female picnickers, “his” should be changed to “his or her.” She first tried making her point with me, somewhat loudly. When I proved unsympathetic, she assailed the editor-in-chief. They went eyeball to eyeball for about 15 minutes. The editor insisted that “his” was proper form and in no way implied disrespect for women. She countered that such an attitude was typical of Neanderthal chauvinistic men bent on setting women’s rights back to at least 1962, one year before Betty Friedan published “The Feminine Mystique.” It’s hard to proofread with people shouting, so I stepped in. “Why not say, ‘a’ picnic basket?” My compromise pleased the editor, who made the change. But it did not please the female staffer. As I recall, she stomped out of the office, muttering something about the editor having his or her head up somewhere I didn’t quite catch as the door slammed. I was reminded of this incident when Mitt Romney made his now infamous “binders full of women” remark while debating President Obama on Oct. 16. If you somehow missed the furor, I’ll recap. Responding to a question about what he would do to address wage inequality for women in the workplace, Romney pointed to his experience after being elected governor of Massachusetts. After his staff had submitted only male names as prospective cabinet members, Romney said, he had approached women’s groups to help him find qualified women. “And,” he finished, “they brought us whole binders full of women.” “Binders full of women.” “His picnic basket.” Two innocuous phrases. Yet, in the minds of some women, both are the continuation of a conspiracy that started when Adam tossed the already bitten apple to Eve – just as God appeared from around the corner in Eden. I don’t get it. Why has everyone gotten his or her bowels in an uproar? First, I blame the media, ever poised to spring from the bushes to supply gotcha moments within seconds of any political debate’s end. But I also blame some women. Ladies, if the phrase “women in binders” automatically conjures up images of shackled, subjugated females, it says more about your proclivities than about Romney’s. Saying “binders full of women” is no more an insult to women than is calling the female head of a committee “chairman” rather than “chairperson.” But, after our haste to make language gender neutral in the ’60s – which resulted in the elimination of the sexist “manhole cover” from the American vocabulary – I guess we’re lucky that Neil Armstrong wasn’t intimidated into proclaiming, “That’s one small step for him or her, one giant leap for personkind.” And please don’t tell me that if I were female, I’d feel the same way some women do about Romney’s perceived affront. I may have been behind the door when vaginas were handed out, but I can empathize. No physical required.