![\"\"](\"https:\/\/erraticplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/31EFZnDhrqL._SY300_.jpeg\" "\\"31EFZnDhrqL._SY300_\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut my favorite digital response was not the stream of snark, but rather a series of \u201creviews\u201d posted to an Avery binder<\/a> page on Amazon.com. (Thank you, Michelle, for cluing me into the phenomenon.) I wanted to include a couple of screen grabs, just in case Avery or Amazon decide to pull the plug, but they look terrible here. As of this writing, some 900 posts and thousands of \u201chelpful\u201d\u00a0clicks have been logged in response to Romney\u2019s binder comment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With the digital commons potentially going the way of the physical one, it\u2019s encouraging to see people co-opting corporate space in inventive, expressive ways for political speech. Given the banality of the lowly binder, it has startlingly generated a profusion of rhetorical strategies and positions; indeed, the amassed collection of Amazon posts and comments on those posts constitute a case of imagery made real\u2014binder-as-metaphor manifesting as a real-world database for the network of interconnected injustices still suffered by women. Some posts are voiced from \u201cinside\u201d the binder, speaking from a disempowered position. Others write from the \u201coutside\u201d to extol or critique the binder\u2019s ability to \u201chold women.\u201d It would be interesting to examine these rhetorical positions from a gender perspective, as well.<\/p>\n More generally, the \u201cSwift\u201d-ian quality of these posts\u2014connoting not only the speed of their propagation, but also their satirical style and sophistication\u2014suggests that Romney\u2019s binder is a metonymic trigger for gender inequalities only recently rectified in history–and as a reminder for those that remain. One remarkable post conflates a variety of right-wing narratives to posit a totalizing, multi-generational image of \u201cbinder life.\u201d Titled \u201cI didn\u2019t need an abortion, all I needed was this binder!\u201d (October 17, 2012), \u201cMom in AK\u201d writes:<\/p>\n I thought I needed control of my reproductive choices. It turns out all I needed was this awesome binder! When it came time to give birth to my child conceived from “illegitimate” rape (“one method of conception,” you know), I had no where to go. With no health insurance, no hospital would take me in. This binder provided me with a safe place to give birth. It’s spacious, plastic, and comfortable. I like to think of it as a my tiny manger, a haven for homeless mother. I’m so relieved that my rape baby was a girl. That way she can happily live in my binder with me until the day she has to go to prison. Since there’s no Joseph in the picture for me, I know my my child will be a criminal. I’ll miss her, but that’s ok because once they cut food stamps, we’ll have to eat the plastic coating on this binder. She’ll get better food in prison. I dream of the day my daughter is illegimately [sic] raped herself, and I’ll become a grandmother. Once my daughter is in prison, there will be plenty of room for me and my grandbaby in this binder. It’s great being a woman! I sure love my binder!<\/em><\/p>\n If television\u2019s \u201ctown hall\u201d format offers a contrived-but-useful venue for \u201cpushing out\u201d candidate messages (even horrible ones) in the broadcast medium, the \u201cpush back\u201d certainly can be found online in the digital marketplace. What\u2019s striking in this case is the location: this isn\u2019t happening in the cul-de-sac of a blog (like this one!), but rather in the middle of Main St. We\u2019ll see how long the Amazon.com corner stays open to this form of political speech, just as we\u2019ll find out in November where the great American experiment is headed. If only de Tocqueville had a binder for the 21st century….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The digiscape was predictably flooded this week with \u201cbinders full of women\u201d memes after presidential hopeful Mitt Romney inserted both feet into mouth during a town hall debate. In the aftermath, a lot of people are raiding the usual sites … Continue reading