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12 - “Cocked and Loaded”: Trump and the Gendered Discourse of National Security

from Part III - The Interactive Making of the Trumpian World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Carol Cohn
Edited by
Janet McIntosh  and
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Janet McIntosh
Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts
Norma Mendoza-Denton
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

On Jan 2, 2018, President Trump tweeted a taunt to Kim Jong-un of North Korea: “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” This chapter connects Trump’s nuclear saber-rattling to broader patterns of militaristic language use among nuclear weapons scientists and strategists, as well as among past presidents. Professional and political discourse about nuclear weapons tends to be far removed from the human realities behind the weapons. Such dispassionate language is characterized by stunningly abstract and euphemistic language – and in part by a set of lively and misogynistic sexual metaphors. This linguistic framework seems to shape what can be said, or even thought, within the confines of these male-dominated discussions of war. Those who urge restraint in responding to a provocation or attack, for instance, are quickly impugned as sissies, and expressions of empathy denigrated as feminine. In this respect, Mr. Trump is not an exception. His fear of being perceived as unmanly may be closer to the surface, but gendered language that constrains our understanding of reality has long distorted the ways we think about international politics and national security.

Keywords

military languageNorth Koreanuclear weaponsmetaphoreuphemismgendermasculinitygender and languagenational securitylanguage and thought
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in the Trump Era
Scandals and Emergencies
 , pp. 179 - 190
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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