A couple days ago I heard a story on BBC World Service about a new law soon to be introduced in Spain that will require men to do 50% of household chores and family care. As strongly as I generally feel about gender inequality, the concept of legally requiring an equal distribution of household labor leaves me a bit perplexed. Certainly, statistics show Spanish society is still has entrenched cultural ideas enforcing gender inequality, where a study showed Spanish fathers spent an average of 13 minutes a day looking after their children. Anecdotally, one woman interviewed by the BBC said her husband refused to iron his own shirts (and it seems she actually puts up with it). I imagine this happens in the U.S. also, but I prefer to let my mind imagine happy things, like a world full of puppies and mango-chile popsicles.
Part of me wants to tell the women of Spain to get some balls and learn to tell any man that refuses to iron his own shirt to fuck off. Personally, I don't want a law to take away the sort of satisfaction that comes from standing up to your garden variety sexist pig or unassuming misogynist.
Then, the part of me that likes to take things to their logical/absurd extent wants even more laws like this to appear, like a law that requires men to give their wives as many orgasms as they get.
This law also brings up a sort of vague notion I've had for some time that although Western Europe is, generally, more politically and socially liberal than the U.S., cultural gender inequality remains prevalent. Never having spent any significant amount of time in Europe or having done research on the topic, I can't say I know much about continental sexism. Smoking trends in Spain are one interesting indication, however. I first heard about this when a female college classmate from Spain bemoaned the increase in smoking among Spanish women and attributed it to a strong, prevailing cultural attitude that smoking is sexy. This article says smoking among Spanish women has double over the last twenty-five years, whereas smoking among Spanish men has actually decreased 24%.
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i wouldn't take what your friend said as the last word on female smoking. consider, if the rate of male smoking twenty-five years ago was 60% (at least anecdotally feasible, based on my short time in spain), a 24% decrease means that 45% of men still smoke. that leaves a gap of more than ten percent between the rate of smoking men and the rate of smoking women.
remember that, in the early twentieth century, it was considered "unladylike" to smoke. that's the reason that virginia slims could cop women's lib language in their ad campaigns. it was an activity forbidden to housewives, christians, and other true believers.
spain retained the catholic fascism of franco well after his exit from the stage. it is not surprising then that the first generation of women without a memory of franco would be the one to double the smoking rate.
however, your friend may be on to something as well. france has a similar problem with "skyrocketing" female smoking rates. they, like your friend, blame women's vanity -- smoking makes you skinnier and sexier -- without making a similar point about the still out-of-control smoking rates among men.
the problem isn't women are smoking more, i would argue (from a position of very little fact but strongly held opinion), but that everyone in europe smokes too much. lay off the ladies, fellas, until you no longer hold the record for cancer deaths wherever you happen to live.
unbelievably, i have yet more to say. consider that the major factor to a declining smoking rate is not quitting but premature death. that means, that at any given time, the percentage of people who smoke is going to skew young. thus, if you assume a climate of complete gender equality begins at year 0 (where men and women smoke, drink, abuse drugs, and get paid at the same rates), then the year 15 is going to show a dramatic increase in female smoking and a dramatic decrease in male smoking. all things being equal, year 50 is going to be pretty well leveled off. now, if only income patterns and smoking patterns had anything in common....
your are most insightful, dick, though i like the conclusions made in a paper by people from the American Cancer Society, the Catalan Institute for Oncology, and the Spanish Dept. of Public Health most:
The explosive increase in cigarette smoking that occurred among young Spanish women after 1970 illustrates the rapidity with which cultural prohibitions against tobacco use by women can be eclipsed by aggressive tobacco marketing aimed at women during periods of dramatic social change. Although multiple factors, including higher education and increased purchasing power, likely contributed to the rise in female smoking, the period of democratization and social liberalization that accompanied the end of the Franco regime created a window of opportunity for tobacco companies to equate cigarette smoking with positive images of emancipation, success, and gender equality, themes that previously have proven effective in marketing cigarettes to women.
you can read the whole paper/study results here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/107631920/HTMLSTART
of course phillip morris is at the bottom of it! good show, u.s. multinationals.
still, pointing at figures that show a doubling of female smoking rates while male smoking rates drop by 24% is fraught because male smoking rates are so much higher, in absolute terms, than female smoking rates. and the study doesn't give any indication that women smoke in greater numbers because they are pressured to look sexy. quite the contrary, it explains the success of phillip morris's campaign in terms of perceived "emancipation, success, and gender equality."
all of which should not take attention away from the fact that PHILLIP MORRIS TARGETS WOMEN (and MINORITIES) FOR THEIR MURDEROUS AD CAMPAIGNS. and that tobbacco companies like to use images of autonomy and coolness and emancipation to make smoking seem like a progressive thing to do.
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