Young girls may also take up smoking as a response to the pressures of gender inequities . As girls become more aware of the limits on their futures and cultural pressures on how they can behave, they feel less control over their lives and turn to smoking as a way to cope. Girls who live in poverty or face cultural, ethnic or other discrimination are even more vulnerable to pressures to smoke. Cost and accessibility factors are also important. Stopping sales of, and access to, tobacco products by minors and keeping costs high can help to put cigarettes out of reach for teenage girls.
Some teenage girls are more likely to smoke than others.
We are surrounded by media images of how women and young girls should look and act. As a result, young women develop unrealistic expectations about how much they ought to weigh and how they should look, both physically and socially. A Well-Researched Market Above all, tobacco companies are in the business of making money. But by far the biggest payoff for tobacco companies is in enticing new smokers onto the market. For Discussion Try a group exercise focusing on the role tobacco companies play in promoting smoking, and how media advertising is designed to encourage teenage girls to smoke.