WATCH OUT, female smokers. You might not know it (you almost certainly don’t, what with you being so easily manipulated and all), but you are being tricked into smoking that cigarette in your hand by evil branding experts luring you in with pretty packaging.

It’s got less to do with the fact that you actually like smoking; you enjoy the hit and you might find things like the taste and nicotine content important. No, you mostly just like the pretty box and you’re afraid that if you quit, you might put on weight and be less of a catch.

Two weeks ago, a report was published calling for action to tackle the numbers of Irish women who smoke, as a result of the news that more Irish women are dying from lung cancer than breast cancer. The report seeks to investigate why such high numbers of women are smoking and what can be done to tackle the problem.

Worrying stereotypes

All very laudable and worthwhile, you might say. However, when one reads the report, some worrying stereotypes start to spring off the pages. According to the report, tobacco companies are working with marketers and branders to develop packaging that specifically targets women and women are unable to resist. Which is fine; men are equally targeted as consumers in all areas of the market place. The problem starts when we are told that women believe that pretty packaging negates the heath risks associated with smoking. According to the report, ‘Women think lighter coloured packs are more elegant and feminine and less harmful’.

Now, as an ex-smoker, I find this statement nothing short of offensive because being patronised by the anti-smoking lobby is just as irritating as being patronised by the smoking lobby. This kind of assertion paints women as shallow magpies, lacking in the ability to choose to smoke for any other reason than that the boxes are cute. Had all cigarettes come wrapped in a big, red bow, it would not have made any difference to me in my decision to begin smoking. Equally, had all cigarettes been sold as twenty loose cigarettes in a brown paper bag, it still would not have made me any more inclined to quit.

I like attractive things as much as the next person but I am not stupid. I might be a woman but I know that cigarettes pose a health risk. A pastel-coloured box does not change either my knowledge of science or my awareness of my own body and the fact that, yes, wow, perhaps these cigarettes are making me breathless. You don’t have to wave an ‘elegant’ looking box in front of my eyes like a magic wand for me to say, ‘Oh wait, no, they’re pink? That’s fine then, they can’t be bad for me’.

Hit smokers in their pockets

Women are judged on appearance in a way that most men would find incomprehensible, but the worst part is that women often turn on each other and succumb to this kind of patronising nonsense that appearance is so vital to women. We cannot afford to be apathetic and casual about hypotheses like this being postulated. The smoking ban, the abolition of packs of tens and the yearly rise in price are all effective in the drive to reduce smoking levels. These measures work because they target all smokers right where it hurts: their pocket and the convenience factor.

Paying almost ten euros per pack to leave a warm pub and stand in the freezing cold in order to get your fix is a large part of the reasons people have for quitting. Smokers are smokers, male or female. Perhaps packaging would be relevant to teenage girls who have never smoked. But that would apply equally to boys! Because the male of the species also enjoy packaging and attractive goods. Or so I’m told. Believe it or not, women often reject advertising. We are actually capable of doing that.

The report states that although Irish women are more likely than Irish men to have a third level qualification, ‘Women are also more likely to have part-time, or insecure jobs, and more likely to suffer from stress, and have less power at work and take on large amounts of unpaid work associated with low-status and low self-esteem, exhaustion and depression. The (sic) leads us right back to emotional work and mental health issues women have and back to smoking’. That’s right, ladies. Not only are you unable to resist the lure of marketing, but you are also trying in vain to deal with what life throws at your feeble female selves. Thank god you have those pretty boxes of cigarettes to cheer you up!

The notion of ‘female hysteria’

Absolutely, all of the things listed in the above statement affect women (and men, I might add), but the way it proceeds from part-time work to depression in one sentence is staggering. Going by this analysis, a woman is thinking, ‘I have low self-esteem because I spend my days sacrificing my needs in order to help others – this makes me want to slowly kill myself by smoking pretty, packaged cigarettes’. Altruism or self-sacrifice is widely regarded as noble and instinctive for women.

Equally, even in a world where women are rising to positions of power and influence, the notion of female hysteria is still insidiously perpetuated across all areas of our culture and society, often by women themselves. Second-wave feminists like Betty Friendan and Germaine Greer rebelled against the mainstream image of women as selfless, weeping, frivolous caricatures, decrying it as both degrading and patronising.

If there are measures that reduce the numbers of men and women dying from lung cancer then great, and research is always important and usually valuable. But, please, let’s stop reducing women to easily-manipulated airheads. We are not cowardly shrinking violets. We are not made to smoke by evil men or even more evil corporations. We smoke because we like it and we give up because we want to.

Irish women across all social groups are an intelligent, discerning and diverse bunch. They cannot and should not be reduced to damaging stereotypes, no more than men should.  Personally, I love artifice, consumerism and escapism as much as the next person, and I support the valuable work done by health care analysts, but I utterly reject the implication that my gender is a limiting factor in my ability to say no. To anything.

Nuala Walsh is a political researcher and PhD candidate, specialising in political philosophy, in University College Dublin.