I am a 38-year-old wanting to stop smoking, but find most of the analysis on women and smoking and why women smoke and how to give up, all focused on "worried-about-weight gain and no-more-wrinkles" school of health management. I would like to gain a better understanding about nicotine as a self-medication for/by women, what and how I might approach this in a way that isn't pivoted on the "shame gain" principle of "I am a bad person because I smoke" vs "I am well and whole and happy because I quit" because neither is true. I have done searches here and elsewhere, but hope your feminist network might have some ideas. I look forward to your help or direction - Jude

This past November there was actually a conference in Kobe, Japan on Tobacco, which was sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO). At this conference, women and smoking was very much a hot topic - or I gather from all the material I have read.

Also, there has always been a feminist reaction to how tobacco companies overtly target women to smoke and use the bait that they will be skinny and beautiful, etc... This is more of an analysis of how cigarettes are marketed, but that is part and parcel to the overall smoking issue. To learn more about Kobe - and some of the work that might have come out of this - the Women's Environment and Development Organization actually had an article on it in their recent newsletter. So contact them for more information - as well as the WHO directly. Good luck with this research - and with quitting

—Amy