Writer: Angeline Morgado, ASH Coverage Intern
October 11, 2025
Whereas world smoking charges amongst ladies have dropped sooner than these of males, the story is much from over. Based on the CDC, in the US, about 10.1% of ladies nonetheless report smoking cigarettes every single day or on some days. This prevalence proportion is important, as Kathela (2025) writes in a Yale Medication article, it’s more durable for ladies to stop smoking than it’s for males. The explanations have but to be confirmed, however the larger difficulties that girls face of their cessation journey can have vital impacts, because the well being dangers are devastating.
Ladies who smoke face greater probabilities of coronary heart assaults, strokes, and lung most cancers in comparison with males who smoke. The American Lung Affiliation studies that girls will not be solely extra susceptible to the consequences of tobacco but in addition 25% extra more likely to develop lung most cancers, partly because of organic variations in lung construction and hormone interactions. Much more alarming, lung most cancers is now the main trigger of cancer-related deaths amongst ladies in the US, killing extra ladies than breast most cancers annually.
However what makes this particularly dangerous is how the tobacco trade has intentionally focused ladies and women for over a century. Based on ASH’s report on “Defending kids from the tobacco trade,” the tobacco trade intentionally targets kids and youth via promoting close to faculties and playgrounds, particularly in low-income areas.
The Fact Initiative studies that for the reason that Nineteen Twenties, tobacco firms have used messages of empowerment and wonder to promote cigarettes. Early tobacco adverts claimed smoking helped ladies shed extra pounds with slogans like “Attain for a Fortunate as a substitute of a candy.” 
By the Sixties, tobacco advertising and marketing had advanced with ladies’s altering roles in society. Philip Morris launched Virginia Slims with the appropriated line “You’ve come a great distance, child,” connecting smoking to independence and progress. The tobacco trade continually tailored to the shifting narratives to proceed pursuing revenue.
When e-cigarettes entered the market, the identical techniques continued. Manufacturers like JUUL featured vibrant, youthful adverts displaying smiling ladies at events, dancing and vaping, framing it as an adjunct of partying or having enjoyable. Shifting phrases from “smoking” to “vaporizing” was an ill-intentioned try and misinform its target market concerning the product. JUUL was showcased as the way forward for smoking, with out mentioning how comparable that future regarded to the previous.
These adverts didn’t simply glamorize smoking; they hid its risks. Based on a Fact Initiative report, smoking can result in irregular intervals, early menopause, and elevated PMS signs, particularly for many who began smoking younger. And regardless of the glamorization within the adverts, smoking accelerates pores and skin ageing and facial wrinkles, and girls who smoke are thrice extra more likely to develop average to extreme wrinkles than ladies who don’t.
Whereas conventional cigarette use could also be declining, the rise of e-cigarettes threatens to repeat historical past, drawing new generations into dependancy below the guise of being a wholesome various to the everyday celebration way of life expertise.
It’s time to name the tobacco epidemic what it’s: a public well being injustice rooted in gender inequality. The rise of e-cigarette use will doubtless be a catalyst to proceed these cycles dangerous to ladies’s well being. It’s crucial that we name out these practices and forestall the manipulation from the tobacco trade because it continues to negatively form our public well being and communities.
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