How Far Have Women Really Come with Cigarettes?

“They say that when Pall Malls were originally introduced, women took to them immediately because they felt the extra length made their noses look shorter. Maybe this thin cigarette similarly could be liked because it makes your hand look slimmer and more graceful. Immediately we felt we were dealing with a feminine idea: women are the stylish sex. There was a tactile distinctiveness too -- equally important and advantageous...” - Hal Weinstein, Vice President and Creative Director, Leo Burnett Company (‘How an Agency Builds a Brand - The Virginia Slims Story).

After years of smoking, it’s easy to have residual anger. Even now, I can't watch the first few seasons of Sex and the City without wanting to slap Sarah Jessica Parker in the face each time she shoves a Marlboro into her mouth. One would think that, as a producer of the show, she'd know better. But money must talk for her character's televised cigarette habit to last more than two seasons.

It’s difficult to soak in the facts, that of the ignorance the feminists of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s had when they permitted cigarette advertising in magazines such as Ms.
Sometimes I wonder what Gloria Steinem would have to say to the cigarette advertisements in Ms magazine. Other times I wonder why this bunch of ‘iconic’ female thinkers couldn’t really be bothered to go as far as to enlighten women about the poison that was packaged and advertised as the next best beauty product: the cigarette

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