In a 1987 article titled “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” Carol Cohn discussed the way in which “defense intellectuals” (the scientists and strategists behind war) used language that was rife with sexual metaphors, sexual imagery, and the promise of sexual domination. Here are some of the words and phrases she heard these men (mostly) use to refer to military weapons:

“penetration aids”

“vertical erector launchers”

“thrust-to-weight ratios”

“soft lay downs”

“deep penetration”

“protracted versus spasm attacks”

“releasing… megatonnage in one orgasmic whump”

India’s first explosion of a nuclear bomb described as “losing her virginity” and then the United States asked whether they should “throw her away.”

An explanation of why the MX missile is to be placed in new silos: “because they’re in the nicest hole—you’re not going to take the nicest missile you have and put it in a crummy hole”

One journalist described a nuclear blast like this:

“Then, just when it appeared as though the thing had settled down into a state of permanence, there came shooting out of the top a giant mushroom that increased the size of the pillar to a total of 45,000 feet. The mushroom top was even more alive than the pillar, seething and boiling in a white fury of creamy foam, sizzling upward and then descending earthward, a thousand geysers rolled into one. It kept struggling in an elemental fury, like a creature in the act of breaking the bonds that held it down.”

With this in mind, consider the costume worn by Miss Atomic Bomb (1957). Yes that is a mushroom cloud or, dare I say, an “orgasmic whump” spreading out all over her. A full-size cardboard cut-out Miss Atomic Bomb, that is Lee Merlin, welcomed Gwen and I to the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. Here she is in all her glory:

I want to give a shout-out to Vivek who mentioned Merlin in response to our previous post on the Atomic Testing Museum.

Reference: Cohn, Carol. 1987. Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Signs 12, 4: 687-718.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Alongside an article in the New York Times today was this graph comparing the percentage of positive statements made about Obama versus Clinton by the media over the course of the primary race.  The article discusses whether players in the U.S. media think their coverage was sexist.  Lots of people do not think so.  It has some really interesting quotes from people in front of and behind the camera.

Click here to see a montage of sexist statements about Hillary Clinton by media pundits.

Spotted on consumerist.com

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask ‘Can I get this shoe in a size seven?'”

…”Obama’s Baby Mama.” Way to racialize the democratic nominee and his wife. See it here.

Thanks to an anonymous tipster!

NEW: Pat C. sent in an image (found here) showing the FOX News caption referring to Michelle Obama as a “baby mama.”

Thanks, PT!

Miguel pointed out that AskMen.com collected a list of “worst male-bashing ads,” all of which represent men as morons or useless oafs. Here are some of them:

1st for Women, a South African auto insurance company that only insures women:

A Domino’s ad in which the wife laughs at her husband’s sexual overtures:

A Sony Cyber-shot ad that depicts men as a horse’s ass (it’s the first clip; for some reason there are some FedEx clips afterward):

Men as easily manipulated by flirty women:

These might be useful for a discussion of masculinity and portrayals of men as idiots and morons, especially regarding family life, which serves to reinforce the idea that men can’t be trusted to cook or clean or care for children because they’ll just mess it up. Although it doesn’t come up in these ads, it’s also good to bring in the class element we see in shows like “King of Queens,” “The Simpsons,” “According to Jim,” and “Married with Children,” which all have working-class, generally pot-bellied idiot husbands married to smart, gorgeous women who sigh and put up with their childish behavior.

Also see the earlier post of a Roomba ad that portrays the husband as a literal ass (this ad also made it into the AskMen list).

Thanks, Miguel!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

In case you haven’t seen the FOX News commentary in which the host suggests that a fist bump between Obama and his wife is a secret terrorist signal, you can see it here.  (And I thought this was bad.)

Here’s an image of the infamous terrorist signal:

NEW! It’s not an image, but Patrice Evans has an interesting essay on the “fist bump heard ’round the world,” arguing we should celebrate National Fist Bump Day.

The graph below, from the New York Times, challenges a stereotype about Asian-Americans and their choice of major in college.  The author writes:

The report found that contrary to stereotype, most of the bachelor’s degrees that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders received in 2003 were in business, management, social sciences or humanities, not in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering or math.

The article also discusses the way in which the category “Asian-American/Pacific Islander” makes invisible the dramatic discrepancy between the educational attainments of Asians who’s families immigrated from different places.  For example, they write:

…while most of the nation’s Hmong and Cambodian adults have never finished high school, most Pakistanis and Indians have at least a bachelor’s degree.

The SAT scores of Asian-Americans, it said, like those of other Americans, tend to correlate with the income and educational level of their parents.

And, to a great degree, the success of a given Asian immigrant group in this society is correlated with the wealth of the nation from which they immigrated.

Elizabeth A. at blogofstench sent us her post on this ad for “Disaboom, a site of news, networking and such for people with disabilities and their hangers-on.” 

She notes how the site and the ad challenge the stereotype of disabled people as asexual but, much like Viktoria in Bizarre magazine, does so by conforming to normative standards of attractiveness.  But I really liked her observations regarding the extent of his disability. She writes:

…not only is this guy the picture of modern white bourgeois hegemonic masculinity, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s also passing as non-disabled. Tattoos aside, he looks like a non-disabled guy sitting down in a chair that just happens to have wheels. While some people indeed use wheelchairs with no back and no handlebars and a low-slung profile, other people with disabilities have much more obvious tools that they use; an electric wheelchair, for example, can have six wheels, headlights and tail lights, a control box with joystick and horn, storage pouches on either side, footrests, leg braces, head rest, reclining seat, adjustable cushions and posture support, a backpack on the back and an obvious computer on board, all of which are much more obvious than a discreet little set of wheels under your butt… I feel that the Disaboom ad downplays the unavoidable obviousness of some mobility aids in its attempt to make the guy in the picture seem more stereotypically “non-disabled.”

Not to mention, I might add, a disability that interferes with urination and defecation or one that caused involuntary body movements.