I’m a young student, I’m a girl … and for some reason they are hard on me for smoking: The role of gender and social context for smoking behaviour

Abstract

Despite considerable population declines, smoking has become increasingly socially stratified, a trend that emerges as salient when examining smoking according to gender. However, there is a dearth of comparative research with regard to smoking inequalities among men and women. The goal of this exploratory study was to examine how three elements of the social context (identity, body, agency) are gendered and the way in which they differentially shape men's and women's smoking practices. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 adult smokers living in Toronto and Montréal, Canada stratified by socio-economic position and gender. Our results show that: (1) women express considerable dissonance between gender identities and smoking behaviour, whereas men's gender identities seem to reinforce smoking behaviour; (2) women's smoking was tied to gendered representations of the body, with the fear of weight gain factoring into their smoking maintenance, whereas concern about the body was absent among men; (3) women suggested wanting, but not having agency over their smoking behaviour while men suggested having agency but little urgency to quit smoking. Our exploratory study points to the possibility that gender remains important for shaping smoking practices among adult smokers and that smoking among some women may be characterised by a greater sense of dissonance and tension than among some men. Addressing gender inequalities in the health discourse surrounding smoking may help reduce the current gender disparities in smoking patterns.

Keywords:

• health promotion
• health behaviour
• health inequalities

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Canada Graduate Scholarship to Stephanie Alexander, a CIHR New Investigator Award to Dr. Katherine Frohlich and a Canadian Tobacco Control Research Initiative (CTCRI) Grant (#15020) to Drs Katherine Frohlich and Blake Poland.