THE roaring twenties in the US: hemlines rose, women got the
vote and the accessory du jour was a cigarette hanging
nonchalantly out the corner of a lipsticked mouth. In the west,
smoking among women has long been associated with empowerment.
Now this pattern looks set to repeat itself as women in poorer
countries become more liberated, says a report in this week's
Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO). Sara Hitchman
and Geoffrey Fong at the University of Waterloo in Ontario,
Canada, analysed the relationship between gender inequality and
smoking prevalence in women compared to men in 74 countries. It
is estimated that, worldwide, men are five times as likely to
smoke as women, but the results showed that in countries where
women are more empowered their smoking rates are catching up or
exceeding men's, regardless of the country's wealth. "Tobacco
industry marketing strategies over the years have targeted women
in countries where their independence is growing," says Deborah
Arnott, chief executive o