History of Women and Smoking

The History of Women and Smoking

June 11, 2012

History of Women and Smoking

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There was a time when it was unladylike for women to smoke. When they did, it was done defiantly, late at night, and behind closed doors. So how did we go from taboo to addiction in less than a century?

Well, as we've seen on Mad Men: advertising. In last night's season finale, Peggy Olson gets the chance to take on Philip Morris's yet-to-be-released cigarette for women at her new agency. (An account that Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce fails to get in the previous season.) Peggy has to take up smoking in order to learn what women want from their cigarettes, but at least she gets to go on her first business trip to glamorous Virginia.

Cigarette ads targeted at women always capitalize on the social climate of the time. So we've enlisted the expertise of former ad man and coauthor of The Cigarette Book: A Celebration of the Culture of Smoking Fletcher Watkins to find out how cigarette companies, advertisers, and the media made those ads stick.

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by Colleen Barrett 4

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4 Comments

Nancy Einhart 49 weeks 1 day

I wish it were still socially unacceptable for women, or anyone really, to smoke. Though I guess it's getting there.

2 years 31 weeks

Companies and advertisement did not "force" smoking on society and women. Did they tout it as fashionable and attractive? Of course; they were trying to make money. But did they hold a gun to people's heads until they lit up? Not so much. Advertising is successful because of society's propensity to act as sheep. Our society will only continue its decline so long as people insist on denying personal responsibility and constantly playing the victim. We have free-will and, though it's debatable in many cases, a brain for a reason. Use them.

2 years 31 weeks

Horrible how these companies and advertising forced this upon society. Thank goodness our era is trying to undo the damage they have done. Once again it is socially unacceptable for men and women!