Cigarette vile : smoking, gender and femininity

• Main Author: Champion, Valerie
• Other Authors: Ho Khai Leong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51859
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Although modern times have allowed female consumption and practices to become increasingly accepted, surveillance of female consumption and its effect on the female body has still continued and reinforces gendered notions. Female smoking can be construed as deviant as it goes against the ideals of traditional femininity with its modern consumption, visibility and subverting a masculinised habit much like other activities females partake in modern society. In studying the place of young women in society and their consumption habits, I research how young women negotiate the boundaries as female smokers with aspects of their life such as in career, working, dating and marriage. This is also within the larger political framework of feminine ideals, the female body and reproduction of social norms and expectation by both young women and men. Respondents also constantly negotiate the idea of female smoking with the changing times and ultimately, what constitutes consumption and habits in modernity.