Chinese women blowing smoke in the face of patriarchy
November 27, 2003 - The Star
By Benjamin Morgan
ShanghaiZhang Yi doesn't much care what other people think about her habit. Those kinds of moralising judgments, like the relevancy of Maoist ideology to today's China, have long gone up in smoke.
"If my boyfriend didn't like me smoking I would break up with him immediately," says Zhang, a 24-year-old advertising manager.
Tantamount to being sexually unchaste only 20 years ago, smoking is making a comeback among young, educated Chinese women, much to the expected delight of cigarette companies and the chagrin of health experts
It demonstrates progress in their society
.
While men may still be smoking up a storm, accounting for most of China's 350-million smokers, or about one-quarter of the population, females are closing ranks, as more and more of them are unabashedly lighting up in public.
Women may not be ready to surpass Chinese men just yet, but less than 10 years ago women who smoked would likely only do so in private.
To do otherwise was to run the risk of social denigration.
Since then Chinese women have moved with the times, encouraged as much by their increased economic muscle as their own sense of new freedoms, experts says.
"Women have gained more freedom as Chinese society has become more liberated," says Xia Xueluan, a social psychologist at Beijing University.
A cigarette signals women's demand for greater equality and
respect from men, Xia says.
"It demonstrates progress in Chinese society and shows a kind of respect towards women. It shows equality between males and females."
Although no woman has reached the upper echelons of party power and almost none head large Chinese corporations, women now have greater freedom of choice than at any time in history, says Xia.
That choice has been brought on by economic gains which can be directly linked to the increase in women smoking, says Yang Gonghuan, vice-president of the China Smoking and Health Association, an anti-tobacco group.
Although in the 1920s about 15% of Chinese women smoked tobacco, the numbers slumped and have only recently jumped back up again.
Now, according to the most recent survey, which dates back to 1996, about 4%, or 20 to 30-million Chinese women smoke regularly, up from less than 1% 20 years ago, the China Smoking and Health Association says.
In trendy Shanghai, the numbers of female smokers last year jumped to 5,56%, the Social, Medical and Health Management Research Centre reports.
Although the rates fall far short of those in Europe, experts fear they are set to rise, even as the Chinese government has begun making noises about curtailing tobacco use following its signing of a United Nations anti-smoking treaty. - Sapa-AFP
Remix
Envoyer ce sujet à un(e) ami(e)
Format d'impression
Mettre en signet (membres seulement)
Forum :
Arrêter de Fumer (Protected)
