Constructing ‘Fashionable’ Youth Identities: Australian Young Women Cigarette Smokers

Abstract

Cigarette smoking among young people has been the source of much research in Australia and other developed counties during the last 20 years. Most people start smoking during their adolescent years, and the younger an adolescent begins smoking the more likely he or she is to become a regular smoker and the less likely he is she is to quit. Moreover, young women are starting smoking at an earlier age than young men, and are starting smoking at a greater rate than young men. I explored what cigarette smoking meant to young women in their adolescent years, to see how the decision to start smoking is related to identity/ies formation. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with a volunteer sample of 20 women smokers aged 18–24 to explore why smoking is seen as desirable in the adolescent years. My analysis indicates that during the adolescent years, the desirable and glamorous images of smoking promoted covertly, are key motivating factors to start smoking, as the cigarette is seen as a fashionable prop in the external portrayal of identity. I show that psychological factors—such as the fear of rejection and alienation from the peer and social group—are also motivators to start smoking, and argue that the ‘choice’ to smoke is problematic when set against a backdrop of these psychological factors.

Notes

1. Denscombe (2001, p. 160) points out that this does not mean that structural factors cease to exert influence. It does mean, however, that there is a tendency for them to exert less influence than in the past. This is a point I think is particularly important, and one that is discussed in further detail later on, as it points to the fact that there is now a ‘shifting and interweaving’, where identity formation is concerned, between agency and structure.

2. Helen is 22 years old and did not start smoking, and had not tried a cigarette, until she was 21. She mentioned that she was working full-time and a lot of the people she worked with smoked, and that it was ‘when we'd all go out for a few drinks’ that she ‘picked up’ smoking. She also suggested that her decision to start smoking had to do with ‘the guy’ she was ‘seeing at the time’ who smoked.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emilee Gilbert

Emilee Gilbert is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Western Sydney