For as long as western culture has inhaled smoke from a burnt leaf, it has been a masculine endeavour not suited for the fairer sex. Even though there were women smoking, it was mostly in the privacy of their homes, as it was considered a kind of social taboo for them to smoke in public. Kind of like being a smoker in general these days I guess... ostracised like lepers for lighting a fag at the door of a building.
The history of smoking being frowned upon comes a long way, Dutch painters in the 17th century even used cigarettes in their paintings as a symbol of human foolishness and during the late 19th and early 20th century different states in the US tried to pass legislation to ban women smoking at all.
Something to chew on: In 1904 a women named Jennie Lasher was sentenced to 30 days in jail for "putting her children's morals at risk" by smoking in front of them. [source]This, along with laws like the one passed in 1908 banning from women smoking in public, meant tobacco companies focused predominantly on their male audiences for revenue.
Smoking for freedom, feminists light up in response.
During the First World War when most men were spending their time in trenches on the front-lines, women started taking over many of the male jobs to keep things from going to shit while their strong husbands were away. Not only did they pick up the jobs, but they also picked up the ciggies while they were at it. Even though it was socially unacceptable and in certain areas down-right illegal, this was the start of a move for equal rights for all women, coinciding with an time which brought on the signing of the Ninteenth Amendment which guaranteed Women's Suffrage.
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Tobacco industries took note of this move by women and started marketing directly towards them, especially the American Tobacco Company. The President of the company, George Washington Hill said opening up the market to women would be like opening a gold mine in your own front yard. He employed the services of a man very well known in the history of Public Relations, Edward Bernays. Bernays was well known for being the guy that basically invented the press release, and he understood that the Women's Liberation movement was ideal conditions to infiltrate the market with a masculine product.
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His technique was pretty simple, first he coined the phrase "Torches of Freedom", positioning cigarettes as a means for women to create a social equilibrium with their male counterparts. He also stage photographs and social gatherings where he hired women to smoke. The biggest of these was at the 1929 Easter Day Parade in New York City at which he paid women to smoke whilst walking the parade. At one stage during the day he had a group of women all light up a fag in front of eager reporters, thus getting it reported as news (which it obviously wasn't). The New York Times of April,1, 1929 printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'"
It worked like an A-Bomb.
Something to chew on: Bernays' approach was highly successful, and the statistics speak for themselves. In 1923 women made up 5% of the smokers' market. In 1929 that number jumped to 12% and by 1935 it was 18.1%. The peak was in the 1965 when the percentage circled around 33%.
The campaign was so well-executed and effective that over the rest of the century tobacco companies still used the phrase "Torches of Freedom" to market cigarettes to other new market segments. In Central and Eastern Europe the marketing message was focused on cigarettes being a symbol of modernity and Western freedom. Even here in South Africa the marketing materials were staged to show cross-cultural racial interaction with African women accepting cigarettes from White men.
Smoking quotes.
"I met the surgeon general - he offered me a cigarette" - Rodney Dangerfield
"It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake" - Mark Twain
Small bites to share:
- About a third of the global male adult population smoke
- Roughly 15 billion cigarettes are sold every day world-wide
- There are three big players in the tobacco market, namely the American, British and Japanese conglomerates
Smoking in the world by country
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