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 The comments were made in reference to his 1978 run for Ohio's
state Senate, according to a spokesman, and not his current
presidential campaign, in which he is running fifth nationally for
the Republican nomination, Reuters-Ipsos polling shows.
"We just got an army of people who, and many women, who left their
kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up,"
Kasich says in footage of Monday's event in Virginia.
Kasich, 63, added his first campaign took place in an era in which
"things were different."
"Now you call homes and everybody's out working," Kasich said.
He apologized for the remark later on Monday.
"Of course, I’m more than happy to say I’m sorry if I offended
somebody out there but it wasn't intended to be offensive and if you
hear the whole thing, you’ll understand the context of it," Kasich
told CNN.
 In the video, an unseen audience member seems to criticize the Ohio
governor for his comment.
"I want to say, your comment earlier, about the women came out of
the kitchen to support you: I'll come to support you but I won't be
coming out of the kitchen."
The response on social media was swift and negative, with many
Twitter <TWTR.N> users decrying Kasich's anecdote as sexist.
"It's 2016. A woman's place is...wherever she wants it to be," wrote
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton)
on Monday, in a quotation retweet that refers to Kasich's comments
about his first campaign.
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Kasich press secretary Rob Nichols told Reuters the governor’s
political campaigns “have always been homegrown affairs.”
“Many of his early campaign teams were made up of stay-at-home moms
who believed deeply in the changes he wanted to bring,” Nichols
said. “He’s proud of that authentic support. To try and twist his
comments into anything else is just desperate politics."
Some social media users compared Kasich’s comment to former
Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” moment
from the 2012 presidential campaign, when he described receiving
many resumes from women. The comment struck many at the time as tone
deaf.
“Mitt had binders full of women, and Kasich has kitchens full of
women,” tweeted Chicago Jesus (@Patriot_Musket).
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Additional reporting by Eric
Beech in Washington; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)
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