Women and smoking

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of death in the United States. Some effects of cigarette smoking has been linked to heart disease and lung cancer, and females who smoke while pregnant, are more prone to preterm labor. With certain feminine packaging and slogans, slimmer and lighter cigarettes, and women smoking in movies and popular TV shows, the tobacco industry was able to increase the percent of women smoking. In the 1980's, tobacco industries were made to have the surgeon generals warning printed on each packaging of the tobacco products. This slowed the rate of women smoking but later slightly increased after the advertisements started to look more present day and more appealing packaging, that appealed to the younger generation. In more recent times, cigarette smoking has been banned from public places and will continue to help decrease smoking rates in the United States.

In 2010 in Gaza, a ban on women smoking in public places was implemented.

In the General Health Effects and the Effects for female sections, the article gives specific statistics on the health effects on women and in general.

As far as the future, smoking levels continue to decline in the developed world and increasing in the developing world.

The cigarette industry began a strong marketing campaign geared toward women beginning in the 1920s in the United States. These campaigns became more aggressive as time has progressed and marketing in general became more prominent. The practice of marketing aimed exclusively at women has continued into the present day and has now expanded globally.

In 1911, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act divided the American Tobacco Trust into several different companies, making market share critical to each company’s survival. The resulting competition spurred innovations in both product and marketing, and eventually progressed to the idea of brands. By 1915, Reynolds’ Camel had become the first truly national brand. Soon to follow were Liggett & Myers’ Chesterfield and the American Tobacco Company’s Lucky Strike. These brands were modern and appealed to the modern sensibilities that were taking over the people of the United States at the time.

In the early part of the 20th Century the anti-tobacco movement was aimed primarily at women and children. Smoking was considered a dirty habit and smoking by women was seriously frowned upon by society. As the century progressed so did women’s desire for equality. The suffrage movement gave many women a sense of entitlement and freedom and the tobacco industry took advantage of the marketing opportunity. Tobacco companies began marketing cigarettes to appeal to women during the burgeoning women’s movement of the 1920s. The American Tobacco Company began targeting women with its ads for Lucky Strikes. Lucky Strike sought to give women the reasons they should be smoking Luckies. They employed ads featuring prominent women, such as Amelia Earhart, and appealed to the vanity of women by promising slimming effects. Most of the ads also conveyed a carefree and confident image of women that would appeal to the modern woman of the 1920s. The ads grew more extravagant with paid celebrity testimonials and far-reaching claims of how Lucky Strikes could improve your life. Their most aggressive campaign directly challenged the candy industry by urging women to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” These aggressive campaigns paid off making Lucky Strike the most smoked brand within a decade.

...
Wikipedia