Islamset - Women Resisting the Tobacco Industry: Current prevalence rates, Health Effects by Gender; Working group report: Long-term Goals, Short-term activities, Medical Women's International Association (MWIA), Soroptomist International, International Network of Women Against Tobacco (INWAT), American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), an organisation with world-wide membership,Asia Pacific Association for Control of Tobacco (APACT).

Proceedings INGCAT International
NGO MObilisation Meeting
Geneva, 15-16 May, 1999.

Women Resisting the Tobacco Industry
Patti White
Senior Policy Adviser, Health Education Authority, England

Current prevalence rates
Smoking rates among women are generally lower than those among men. Data from industrialised countries indicates that in societies where equity is growing between the sexes and where women's smoking has a longer history of being socially accepted, tobacco smoking rates among women rise or remain stable until they join with men's declining rates, and then they decline together. In many low income countries, rates among women are low, and the WHO estimates that, world wide, 12% of women smoke, compared to 47% for men. However, in some pockets of society, traditional patterns of tobacco use can produce very high rates among women.

Health effects by gender
In addition to the damages caused to the human male body by tobacco, women's bodies are subject to many other damages related to the reproductive system, including greater risk of decreased fertility, bleeding in pregnancy, spontaneous abortion earlier menopause. Evidence is growing that dose for dose women have a higher risk than men for lung cancer and respiratory damage. Research also indicate, that among girl smokers lung function is damaged more rapidly than among boy smokers.

Tobacco industry targeting of women The bigger the market, the more profits they make. And it has been done before. In the United States, women were paid to smoke in the street so that social attitudes about women smoking in public might change. The emancipation issue is closely associated to smoking in advertising directed at women. For any group that wants a visible sign of "moving up in the world", cigarettes are accessible and affordable.

Cigarette use has come to be linked to these issues related to women's search for equality and equity: freedom of choice, freedom of movement, disposable income.
In many societies, smoking has become the ersatz symbol of emancipation: there is nothing free about it and this does nothing for the basic needs of women for education and empowerment.
In western societies, thinness is seen as sign of wealth and self-control: smoking has become a weight control device. Nicotine appears to modify the body's metabolism to burn more energy, it is a hunger suppressant. In low income areas people may smoke instead of eat.
In western societies, women, perhaps more than men, use cigarettes for mood control, Particularly negative emotions such as frustration and anxiety. We do not know if the reason for smoking in low income countries are similar.

Women resisting the tobacco industry
In societies where smoking or any other form of tobacco use is not culturally acceptable, the burden lies in preventing the association between the growth inequity and taking up tobacco use. In societies where smoking rates are rising or stable among women, the challenge will be to dissociate tobacco use from the positive values it may be associated with. In societies where women's smoking rates are declining, the challenge will be to maintain and reinforce that decline, and cater to the special women's groups that are not being reached.

Working group report
Patti White, facilitator NGOs: American College of Chest Physicians, APACT, International Network of Women Agaist Tobacco, Medical Women's International Association, Soroptomist International .

Long term goals:

We must avoid a tobacco pandemic among women in developing countries. · Decreasing / avoiding tobacco use is tied to women's equity issues: women must have equal access to education and services.
Women have an especially strong interest in tobacco control because of sexual health, reproductive health, welfare of childre, their role as health, welfare of children, their role as health providers in general and in the family, and cosmetic issues; the key is in raising wariness and concern among women. Women must raise the issue with other women. We must gain the interest and support of women's organisations.

Short term activities:

Medical Women's International Association (MWIA):

Report and recommend for Executive Committee to advocate tobacco control.
Work specifically within the Central Europe Group.
Promote World No Tobacco Day:

Soroptomist International

Put tobacco control on the agenda at the International Convention in Helsinki in July 1999.
Place an article in the quarterly Soroptimist magazine.
Networking with other (women's) groups.

International Network of Women Against Tobacco (INWAT)

Wide distribution of its expert report on "Gender and Tobacco" throughcancer leagues and women's organisations.
Develop the website with more infromation on why tobacco is a women's issue.
Recruit more members, seeking them in women's organisations.

American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), an organisation with world-wide membership

Create and anti-tobacco coalition of 150,000 American physicians
Write to deans of medical schools, schools of pharmacy and dentistry throughout the world with a suggested minimum educational sheet about tobacco and type of examination questions.

Asia Pacific Association for Control of Tobacco (APACT)

Lobbying government bureaux
Networking with media people interested in women's organisations
Net working with media people interested in women's /children's issues
Recruiting people to "monitor" the media
Get good data, by encouraging medical research groups to work on tobacco issues.