Written by: Abigail Francis
Edited by: Penelope Cramer
Delta One Launch Control Facility “Blast door art” taken by a McGill Professor
Discussions of nuclear weapons are typically presented as objective and rational, removed from the influence of culture or identity, and at first glance, gender and nuclear weapons may appear unrelated. However, in her paper Wars, Wimps, and Women, Carol Cohn argues that gendered assumptions shape the discourse surrounding nuclear strategy. Cohn begins her piece with a story about a nuclear defense strategist who said he felt “like a woman” when he mentioned the human lives that would be lost if a nuclear warhead were deployed. According to Cohn, this discourse codes concern for human casualties as feminine and therefore devalued, effectively excluding empathy for enemy lives from legitimate strategic discussion. As a result, she argues, the feminization of nuclear concepts limits our ability to “think well and fully” about weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The Sexual and the Techno
The use of specialized language allows those responsible for deploying WMD to distance themselves from the realities of the violence they produce. By rendering destruction abstract and more palatable, this language can even make it appear fun or seductive. Beyond individual behavior, gendered narratives shape nuclear discourse itself by producing both abstract “technostrategic” terms and sexualized forms of expression.
During the Carter administration, a well-known academic security affairs specialist said, “under Jimmy Carter the United States is spreading its legs for the Soviet Union.” The usage of such sexualized language destroys any opportunity for rational, deliberative discourse about WMD policy, transforming typically technical and objective calculations into a performance of dominance. Expressions like “deep penetration,” “erector launchers,” and “placing missiles in the nicest hole” (referring to missile silos) are widespread, actively conflating weapons deployment with male sexual potency. In sum, the history of the atomic bomb is rife with overt images of male sexuality. The use of abstraction and euphemism – phrases like “collateral damage” in place of human death, or calling a missile capable of 250 times the destruction of Hiroshima the “Peacekeeper” – renders the language deceptively benign enough to obscure the reality of mass human loss. Terms such as “marry up” and “footprints,” drawn from the language of relationships and everyday life, domesticate the description of where weapons will land, creating a stark disconnect between familiar language and the reality of large-scale destruction. Technostrategic language diminishes realities and detaches human lives as a reference point for destruction, making speaking about nuclear weapons snappy and fun, and granting one “mastery of the tech” by virtue of their linguistic stance. This allows those in the nuclear sector to be psychologically insulated.
Trump and His “Nuclear Button”
While many of the aforementioned examples originated during the Cold War era, when nuclear war was a constant threat, such language continues to prevail today. In 2018, President Trump tweeted about North Korea’s leader’s WMD capability; “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works,” casually threatening nuclear war with an unmistakable sexual innuendo about size and power. In national security discourse, being seen as insufficiently masculine discredits one’s position. According to Carol Cohn, those who urge caution or question the use of WMD risk being labeled “wimps” or “pussies.” She recounts a U.S. defense intellectual dismissing West German politicians who were concerned about public opposition to Euromissile deployments as “a bunch of limp-dicked wimps.” Such rhetoric – like questioning whether leaders “had the stones for war” – frames restraint or diplomacy as emasculation, suggesting only an aggressively masculine posture is fit for the nuclear stage. Similarly, for Donald Trump, projecting dominance and hypermasculinity has been central to cultivating both domestic and international perceptions of US strength over North Korea.
Add More Women and Stir
Women currently make up 32% of the nuclear weapons workforce and hold only 12% of leadership positions. It’s easy to assume that by increasing the representation of women in the nuclear policy and defense sector, the language surrounding WMD would become less pervasive. However, Cohn argues this isn’t the case, positing that every person, regardless of gender, who enters into the nuclear world must participate in gendered discourse and adopt masculine positioning to be successful. As a result, the issue surrounding nuclear discourse is not about who is present in the room, but the rules that shape how people in that room are expected to speak and think. To be taken seriously, participants must learn to adopt the same technostrategic and sexualized language that distances them from the human consequences of nuclear weapons. In this way, the system reproduces itself: the language normalizes the weapons, and the weapons reinforce the language.
Real World Impact?
But does language about WMD have real-world impact, or is all of this just political strife? Focusing solely on language is narrow, but because of this type of rhetoric, rather sexual or technostrategic, an entire line of thinking about nuclear strategy is effectively cut off. By excluding a range of inputs and moral considerations, nuclear deliberation forecloses alternative strategies by limiting what can be discussed.