Women in Tobacco: The Trapped Liberation?

"Mimpi saya adalah menciptakan kretek terbaik, tapi di dunia kretek, perempuan hanya boleh menjadi pelinting saja."

Every woman has a dream---and so does Dasiyah. However, being a woman in the 1950s is a different story. Gadis Kretek (Cigarette Girl), Indonesia's global sensation drama, has portrayed how women live under the glass ceiling, in which the domestic role becomes the sole role women can achieve. Dasiyah, as its main character, delivers her struggle to pursue her dream as the mastermind behind the kretek (tobacco) instead of only being a pelinting (roller). There is a long road to go, but should we trust the tobacco industry to pave along our way?

Torches of Freedom

Gender is a social construct. It was shaped by beliefs, expectations, and activities upon the social-cultural context (Fenstermaker & West, 2002). The tale of Dasiyah caters to the figure of a woman who has been embedded under the label of reproductive and non-economic roles. Being the mastermind behind the cigarette recipe and even managing the tobacco company has been what Dasiyah longs for. However, Dasiyah could never enter the forbidden sauce room to achieve any of her dreams solely because she is a woman.

The plot would differ if Dasiyah were a man. Under the label of 'masculinity', 'authoritative', and 'dominant', Dasiyah is preserved as a competent young leader that is able to manage the company. Also, living a life surrounded by tobacco and smoking will no longer lead her to any catastrophic events. Unfortunately, this negative stigma of women smoking is parallel to what happened empirically. Women are embedded as amoral, wild, and naughty if they're smoking. Thus, these so-called shameful activities were done almost behind closed doors for many years. Also, this dismissive image of women is spread around to massive media consumption. For instance, Indonesia's '90s and early 20s movies captured women who smoked as something defiant and as a symbol of prostitution.

On halt of breaking the glass ceiling, women in the 20th century have been promoting smoking as a symbol of emancipation. The first wave of feminism embarked on female smokers as women's liberation. It was motivated due to this action being very much masculine connotated and represented independent beings with the same rights as men. Even though the first wave of feminism targeted upper-class women, the influence of this movement later achieved its peak in the 1930s through the movement of torches of freedom. 

How Advertising Works: A Behavioral Economic Perspective

Smoking is no longer a man's habit---it's presented as a feminine freedom. Derived from female independence, the tobacco companies consider this awakening moment as a chance to solidify their profits. In 1928, George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company, pursued a campaign by riding the wave that led women to smoke. Hired a famous advertiser, Hill communicates a marketing message that associates smoking with both losing weight and maintaining a youthful appearance. It's a massive success---the company's sales are hitting its roof. 

However, Hill wouldn't stop there, it got to be more. He then approached Edward Bernays to fulfill his will. Taking the psychoanalytical view, Bernays transformed the identity of cigarettes into notions of freedom and rebellion. Bernays delivered it to all kinds of women and conveyed that it is considered stylish and rebellious for women to begin smoking in outdoor settings. On behalf of the Ninth Amendment, women during the Easter Day Parade in New York City marched through the parade with cigarettes celebrating their freedom to smoke publicly without any dread of judgement. Thus, tobacco items which equated with men, were started perceived as torches of freedom for women.

The "Torches of Freedom" stance gave the company a major success by making the company's share grow exponentially. Then, it raised a question. How could advertisement played a big role in people's decisions? This question could be answered from the behavioral economics perspective.

The fourth principle of behavioral economics states that 

"Although we mostly care about our own material payoffs, we also care about the actions, intentions, and payoffs of others, even people outside our family"

This stated that social preferences matter toward individuals' decision-making. It is delivered in diverse forms, especially negative reciprocity, behindness aversion, and social pressure (Laibson et al., 2015). In this case, Bernays uses this human trait to deliver his 'propaganda' through the framing effect. He framed that smoking seemed more appealing to women and through the lights of the torches women were equal to men. Lurking back to its history, women have been struggling and suffering to achieve equal rights (and even until today). The presence of this 'empowering' message had the women gain a breath of fresh air to achieve what they had been longing for ever since---freedom. Thus, Bernays has successfully complemented the needs of women by framing impactful (and hopeful) information.

Exploitation or Empowerment?

Cigarettes are like a double-edged sword---they may 'benefit' or harm you. With its gigabit advertisement, cigarettes have been catered in most of everyone's life nowadays. It's the world's new market. Even though women's smoking is declining (see Figure 1), numerous nations are anticipated to experience an increase in the prevalence of tobacco use among females in the upcoming years (see Figure 2). 

Figure 1. Global trends in the prevalence of tobacco use by sex (Source. WHO, 2019)

Figure 2. Comparison in the prevalence of tobacco based on sex (Source. Tobacco Atlas, 2020) 

The tobacco industry has perfectly targeted women to gain its sights. Cigarettes are attractively packaged, available in diverse flavors, and marketed through media with a predominantly female audience (Feeny et al., 2021). These aggressive marketing tactics by the tobacco industries indicate that women are becoming an object of exploitation rather than a matter of empowerment. It regressed the essence of freedom of what women have longed for.

A rise in the consumption of tobacco among women merely shows any beneficial long-term ends. It will lead to a rise in non-communicable diseases which hinders the implications of public health and the attainment of global development goals. Also, smoking is costly in both means of health and economic stance. As smoking is a costly addiction, the addictive behavior contributes to and worsens disparities in both wealth and health. For instance, in the context of Indonesia, spending 15 trillion rupiah---equivalent to 10% of cigarette tax revenue---is necessary for the government to treat people suffering from smoking-related illnesses.  Therefore, the means of exploitation of the tobacco industries don't necessarily imply a misleading form of empowerment but also an exploitation toward the generation of womanhood.

Rethinking the Liberation

What would Dasiyah's life be if she lived today? Will she be able to enter the forbidden room? Will she be given the chance to manage the company? There's no guarantee what her life would be. However, everything is gradually shifting today. Compared to several decades ago, nowadays women are empowered to gain the freedom to choose. Most women have gained the opportunity to not only participate in non-economic roles but also in economic roles. Through all the things that happened, should the tobacco industry deserve to take the credit?

Amid the dilemma, the tobacco industry and women are indeed a backlashing idea. The tobacco industry isn't necessarily promoting empowerment but rather exploitation of our agenda, goal, and objective---freedom. Thus, being a woman who pursues her rights is never been an easy task to do. It is a forever-length agenda women (and everyone) need to march for.

Teresa Tiara Puspita | Economics 2022 | Staff of Kanopi FEB UI Economics Studies Division 2023/2024

References

Atienza, P. (2022, July 30). Principles of behavioral economics applied to tobacco use. Behavioral Economics Blog - Behavioral Economics Blog. Evidentia University. https://evidentiauniversity.com/blogs/economics/principles-of-behavioral-economics-applied-to-tobacco-use-behavioral-economics-blog/

Baghli, Amna, "Torches of Freedom and Gender Inequality" (2021). Undergraduate Research Symposium. 59. Available at: https://irl.umsl.edu/urs/59

Christensen, W. (2012, February 27). Torches of Freedom: Women and Smoking Propaganda - Sociological Images. The Society Pages. https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/02/27/torches-of-freedom-women-and-smoking-propaganda/

Correll, R. (2020, April 7). Tobacco Industry Targets Women and Girls as Next Generation of Smokers. Tobacco Atlas. https://tobaccoatlas.org/tobacco-industry-targets-women-and-girls-as-next-generation-of-smokers/

Feeny, E., Dain, K., Varghese, C., Atiim, G. A., Rekve, D., & Gouda, H. N. (2021). Women's Health and Gender Inequalities: Protecting women and girls from tobacco and alcohol promotion. The BMJ, 374. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n1516

Laibson, David, and John A. List. 2015. "Principles of (Behavioral) Economics." American Economic Review 105 (5) (May): 385--390. doi:10.1257/aer.p20151047.

WHO global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000--2025, third edition. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2019.