She May Look Clean-But Meaning

Venereal Disease has been a concern of the U.S. military throughout both of the World Wars. Although the occurrence of VD during World War II was far lower than in World War I, the armed forces still made a concerted effort to educate the American soldiers and public about venereal disease, primarily syphilis and gonorrhea, in an effort to further reduce the prevalence. Sexual health posters warning of STDs soon became a standard way of raising social awareness about the issue. These posters, while well-meaning in sentiment, overwhelmingly perpetuated sexist ideology that vilified women as the sole carriers of venereal disease and servicemen as their unknowing victims.

“She May Look Clean- But” was a poster that began being distributed in

They did not discriminate between readers of varying education levels, economic classes, race, or culture making them highly effective in widespread communication. The top right hand portion of the poster depicts a chaste-looking, neatly-dressed brunette young woman looking directly at the poster’s viewer, with her chin pointed demurely down. Below her and to the left are three much smaller men dressed in uniform gazing up at her while facing away from the viewer. Separating the woman and the men is the phrase “She May Look Clean- But” written diagonally between them. “She May Look Clean -” is in thick, black lettering while the “But” is bright red. Below the men and women is a frame with a black background that reads “Pick Ups, ‘Good Time Girls’, Prostitutes spread Syphilis and Gonorrhea” in white lettering. Below that, in a darker red, reads “You can’t beat the Axis if you get VD.” The woman appearing so massive in contrast to the

The white font around the image states, “She May Be A Bag of Trouble” and then below that, “Syphilis – Gonorrhea.” The woman’s eyes are not visible beneath her thick, black eyelashes, making her a very different kind of women than the innocent, wide-eyed girl featured in “She May Look Clean-But.” A poster distributed by American Social Health Association shows a black and white sketch of two women wearing furs, high heels, and smoking cigarettes. They are standing against a wall, below a sign that states, “U.S. Navy Yard, U.S. Army Cantonment” The lower hem of the women’s skirts read “syphilis” and gonorrhea”. This was a common trend in posters, to label the women as the diseases themselves, thusly personifying the dangerous infections as actual females. Above the women reads the sentence, “Warning: These enemies are still lurking around”. It is ambiguous if “enemies” refers to the diseases, the women, or the diseased women. Again in this poster, women are characterized as the sexual aggressors, loitering around a military base and looking for unsuspecting young men to corrupt. These women could be