Tobacco Blinders: How Tobacco Control Remained Generic for Far Too Long

Tobacco use is the most serious global public health issue and the leading cause of preventable death in the world, killing 7.1 million people per year. One billion people will die of tobacco use in this century. Patterns of tobacco use are gendered, with more men than women using tobacco, and often starting and quitting first. Ending tobacco use is the subject of the world’s first and only public health treaty, the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, with 168 signatories worldwide. While the tobacco industry has consistently applied a sex- and gender-based analysis to tobacco as a marketing strategy, public health has failed to do so. Feminist writers have critiqued the generic, “one size fits all” public health approach for several decades arguing for more tailored, equitable, and gendered responses. In the face of new e-cigarette products generating dependence among users, the call for a tailored gender-based analysis of smoking behaviours and cessation is even more important and urgent. This chapter discusses the need for sex-, gender-, and diversity-based analysis to be brought to bear on the topic of girls, women, and smoking, the resistance to date by public health and much needed directions going forward.