As Mormon Enforcer, Mitt Romney Took Firm Stance Against Polyester-Clad Cougars

Mitt Romney was very busy during his tenure as a Mormon bishop. When he wasn’t berating pregnant women for undergoing necessary medical procedures, he spent his time harassing sassy middle-aged divorcées…

Three decades ago, Carolyn Caci, a recently divorced Mormon convert, joined a congregation here presided over by a young church leader named Mitt Romney… [H]e used his time with the newcomer to express both his disapproval of divorce and to remind the middle-aged woman, who had begun dating again, about the church's opposition to premarital sex.

"I got awfully mad," said Caci, now 80. "I told him it was none of his business and he said it was." Romney persisted, she said, and also warned her to avoid consorting with a group of devout but independent Mormon women… who published a Mormon feminist journal titled Exponent II.

According to those who knew him at the time, this event was part of a larger pattern of old-timey attitudes about women…

[Mormon feminist Nancy] Dredge recalled one instance in which Romney called her into his office to discuss the women's requests to play a more active role in the church. "He said, 'I've got a great job for you, to write up the notes for the men's meetings!' He didn’t get it," she said. "He thought we would be thrilled"… "At the time he hadn't worked a lot with women," Dredge said. "He went by the church’s position that the women's place is in the home."

Those pesky bored housewives! Why won't they just stay in the kitchen where they belong? They're always asking for "rights"and "jobs" and "not sharing their husband with other wives."

Frankly, I think Romney let them off easy. He saved his greatest criticism for godless, gaudy synthetic fibers…

During one meeting with the church's women's relief society, he encouraged the wives of his peers to look after less fortunate families in the congregation, but advised that the culture shock might be difficult for them. "'Sometimes, people are wearing polyester in Medford,'" Dredge recalled Romney as saying. "I thought, 'Oh my.'"

Oh my, can you imagine what the Democrats must be wearing? Probably rayon or something. Gross. They might as well be farmers.

Or feminists.

Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Men and Women, Mitt Romney, Mormon, Primaries, Religion, Republicans