"I thought it was unfair that no matter how hard I worked or how good I was at my job, I was still only paid 72% of what men in my field were earning," America Rodriguez says as she pulls a cigarette out of her pack. She lights it with the burning filter of the one she has just smoked. Rodriguez, 32, a single mother, is one of dozens --perhaps even hundreds-- of Massachusetts women embroiled in the controversy the"Binders Full of Women" project. Rodriguez and the other 22 women filing suit with her, allege that they were deceived by offers of competitive pay and flexible hours."I suppose that's what enticed me, that's why I kept showing up for my callback interviews even though things got progressively stranger." Instead of mom-friendly jobs the plaintiffs say they were subjected to hole-punches and held in binders, against their will, for periods of up to 30 days.
"I heard about it through a women's group, that's why I thought it was safe," says Cynthia McCallister, 33. That women's group, Massachusetts Government Appointments Project [MassGAP], is a co-defendant along with the state of Massachusetts in the case to be heard before the Massachusetts Supreme Court next month. MassGAP did not respond to requests for a statement but a top official speaking on condition of anonymity told us that beginning in Spring 2002 the Governor's office began a partnership with MassGAP
that lasted the remainder of the year.
"Governor Romney called me in April and said 'look, politics in this state are a total sausage-fest. I'm either watching Menino sweat and mumble through his jowls, or I'm sitting at a table with a dozen dudes who look just like him. I look out my window and the college students are running around in their halter-tops and miniskirts... there need to be more women in my workplace!'" As chauvinistic as the statement seems, this same official from MassGAP claims to have recorded every conversation he had with Governor Romney. "And I have copies," he says, "In case they come after me."
According to the MassGAP official, Romney's idea was to have the women interviewed first to make sure they conformed to his traditional ideal of the American family. Once that was confirmed they were invited back for a second and third interview. The Governor then wanted qualified finalists presented to him "in a binder, or something."
"It would have been harmless boys being boys stuff" insists the source, "if it hadn't been for Schopper."
Arnold F. Schopper was born in Vienna, Austria in 1959. He graduated from a prestigious Austrian Prep School, but was expelled from Hanover Medical School in 1984 for suturing a live rat to his girlfriend's shoulder. Saved from a life of destitution by family connections in Massachusetts, he emigrated in 1989 and worked as a headhunter from 1990 - 2002. "We didn't know anything about what happened at Hanover, if we had we certainly would not have turned to this, this, monster."
The plaintiffs' attorney Robert Vaughn says Schopper was given instructions by the Governor's Office as well as MassGAP of what sorts of questions to ask. Other MassGAP officials remember that while Governor Romney was specific about wanting women of a certain lifestyle Schopper obsessed over minutiae such as height, measurements, hair, and eye color. "'They have to be perfect!' he snapped at me once. I was just like, ok, man. You couldn't argue with Schopper, everyone knew he was the best."
"They asked such bizarre questions in the first interview," Shannon O'Rourke, 29, remembers. "First thing he asked me was if I had ever had an abortion. When I said no, he asked if I listened to Huey Lewis and the News. When I said I wasn't really familiar with that, I thought he was going to slap me."
McCallister, too, says that in her first interview she was asked how many men had "taken carnal knowledge of her" and whether she felt she needed a man to be complete "like a proper woman."
"For me it got weird on the second interview," says Rodriguez, "Schopper insisted that I refer to him only as 'Doctor.' He tested my eyesight, my hearing, and even made me open my mouth so he could count my teeth." O'Rourke says the doctor took even more liberties, "at the end of my second interview he smelled my hair. He told me I smelt like cum and sea salt."
After the blatant disregard for personal boundaries, the state has pointed out, it seems shocking that the women continued to show up for their interviews. The consensus among the plaintiffs is clear. "They were offering flexible hours, and $30,000 a year. That job was perfect for me. If I had gotten it, then what I had to go through to get it might not have been so bad. Two weeks of paid vacation AND benefits."
"We just sort of let Schopper run with it. The job candidates were due to be presented to the Governor in July, and the only specific instruction I got from Governor Romney after June was that if I 'sent him a bunch of bull-dykes from Medford' he would 'suck my blood,'" confides the MassGAP source.
"In the third interview the doctor asked me what my last bowel movement was like. When I was in the middle of answering he started humming this creepy nursery rhyme," recollects O'Rourke.
"He asked me how often I menstruated and what color the blood was. When I told him monthly and red his face dissolved into this flabbergasted expression. Then he sort of sang 'Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, kissed the girl and made her cry," Rodriguez corroborates "It was haunting, I think he might have been crying."
While the first three interviews had taken place at different office settings, all of the plaintiffs were surprised to find their fourth interview scheduled in a home in Brighton.
"At the start of the fourth interview, I noticed a change in the Doctor's demeanor. He was manic, almost giddy when before he had been cold and judgemental," McCallister's speech slows as she ruminates on the horror that later befell her. "He told me 'congratulations, you've got the job.' I was so excited I didn't even think twice when he offered me a glass of wine to celebrate. I woke up surrounded by a hard plastic cover with three metal rings going through my back."
It was the same for Shannon O'Rourke, but America Rodriguez had a different experience.
"I told him that I didn't drink. He was visibly upset, so much so that I almost drank it just to appease him. But then I heard it, the shouting from the basement."
Schopper tried to stop Rodriguez from investigating, but she had already opened the basement door. She was halfway down the stairs when she saw it. "It was full of women." Schopper had surgically attached women to binders that were categorized by body-type and eye color. "I turned to run back up where I had come from, but he was there," she begins to weep, "he told me he would make me beautiful.'"
When Schopper presented his Binders Full of Women to Governor Romney, he was immediately taken into custody by Massachusetts State Police. He is currently serving consecutive life sentences for 23 counts of Kidnapping, Sexual Assault, and Human Centipeding. Mitt Romney's campaign released a statement earlier in the week saying, "it is ludicrous that at a time when the president is murdering American foreign service officers in Libya, you would devote column space to the actions of a lone madman."
Schopper said, for his part "I followed the directives I was given, and improvised along the way. My menagerie was a testament to the sublime cruelty of God. The fruits of my painstaking labor and the value of my meticulous research are beyond the reproach of mortals. Behold my wonders and despair."
As for his victims, they persevere as they must. "I think I'm a stronger person because of what happened to me," says America Rodriguez as she puts out her cigarette. "But I'd still do just about anything to get a 30k job with benefits."
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