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Notes -
It was indeed about Romney's alleged sexism. For example, as the linked Wikipedia states:
Romney was accused of dehumanizing women by using a synecdoche, whether intentionally or not, that related women to a binder of resumes. This was highlighted as evidence of his alleged casual misogyny.
Naturally, neglecting to emphasize the distinct Wonderfulness of each and every woman (only women as a whole) while bragging about how you discriminate against men in favor of women will be held up as evidence of your misogyny. It's not evidence of misandry, however, because giving hiring preferences toward women is the bare minimum in not being a completely awful human being. Plus, he doesn’t deserve credit for the DEI attempt, since everyone knows that hiring more women and non-Asian minorities improves businesses so even a greedy misogynistic pale stale male would prefer hiring women and minorities out of self-interest.
Romney bragging about pro-female affirmative action—and getting hoist by his own petard because of it—provided another amusing example of the epic_handshake.jpg between conservatives and progressives when it comes to women’s Wonderfulness and Lives Mattering More, where they just sometimes haggle over how much more (and in what ways) while conservatives drive the progressive speed limit.
I do still think a lot of it was Romney's social awkwardness and saying it in a very memey way. But I do acknowledge that a Democrat doing a similar thing would get less flak, in a dating in the workplace kind of way. Not necessarily none, because Howard Dean and Hillary both have gotten some mockery from the left for coming across as fake or socially awkward.
That said, it was later claimed that the statement was a lie, and that feminist groups had sent Romney the resumes on their own initiative rather than him requesting them.
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