I’m a Woman Who Smokes

Humanities Café 36.5º: Why are cigarettes such a big deal?

By Hong Seung-eun

Published April 7, 2017

Translated by Marilyn Hook

The change happened when I turned thirty [in Korean age]: I began to smoke. It was a memorable change for me. I, who had hated cigarettes so much that my ideal type was “a non-smoker”, became a smoker myself. There wasn’t really a good reason for it. My sister coming back from India and saying, “Actually, smoking cigarettes is kinda nice. We just hated them because we grew up having to smell Dad’s cigarettes,” was all there was to it. Now, it’s been four months since I really became a smoker, and I’m feeling a sense of harassment that I’ve never been subjected to before.

One day soon after I’d started, a younger male colleague who had watched me fumblingly inhaling and then coughing asked, “Why do you insist on learning to smoke?” He had been a smoker for seven years. When I asked him, “Why do you smoke?” he said it was because he was already addicted and couldn’t help it, but that I should avoid it if possible. After all, women get pregnant, and smoking is bad for your health... he said, as he pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. It was quite an ironic situation.

But there have been many people like him, who themselves are smokers but tell me that women shouldn’t smoke. A few of my boyfriends have been smokers. As I didn’t like smoking then, I tried to get them to quit by threatening, “If you keep on smoking, I’m going to start, too!” They would say, “No. Don’t ever smoke.” Seeing my boyfriends freak out when I would put a cigarette in my mouth and act like I was smoking made me feel like this tactic was working, but also made me wonder if it really would be a big deal if I smoked.

One afternoon, I was in a group of smokers standing in an out-of-the-way part of the sidewalk, and a passing middle-aged man stared piercingly at me. No, he stared daggers at me. He even, after passing us, turned his head to stare more daggers at me. There were two men smoking too, but the middle-aged man looked only at me. Perhaps noticing what was going on, one of the others said, “The world sure hasn’t changed.” I agreed enthusiastically with that assessment of the problem, and then suddenly felt afraid. If I had been alone, wouldn’t that man have said something to me? Wouldn’t he have started cursing willy-nilly?

A smoking woman   ⓒ Saebyeok

Taboo: women who smoke in secret

At our latest writing meetup, A, who had smoked since college, told her story. There was a special smoking room on campus, but A felt uncomfortable going there, so even through her junior year, she would go into the woods behind the school to smoke. She said that it wasn’t just her, but most of her female friends smoked in places where others couldn’t see. Then one day, as she was smoking among the trees, she wondered why she had to hide like that, and from then on she went confidently into the smoking room to smoke. This only became possible in her fourth year. And even then, she was the only woman in the smoking room.

  

Listening to A, I suddenly thought of my mom. The first time I saw her smoke was when I was almost 19 years old. After the rest of the family had left the house, she smoked secretly on the balcony and covered the smell with perfume and air freshener. When I tentatively approached and asked what she was doing, she was startled and apologized to me. I told her, “It’s fine, but don’t smoke anymore.”

Despite having grown up watching my father smoke, I found the fact of my mother’s smoking weird and upsetting. It wasn’t just because I worried about her health and disliked the smell of smoke. I felt and said what I did even though Mom was healthier than Dad and cleaned up after herself carefully. Dad smoked proudly in front of our family, but Mom hid. Just like A avoided a nice smoking room for the woods, Mom smoked secretly even in her own house, as if it were part of a spying operation.

People say these kinds of things, too: “Kindergarten teachers actually smoke and hawk loogies secretly”, “Women who pretend to be elegant ladies have cigarette butts in their pockets”. On entertainment shows, male MCs often tease female pop stars or celebrities by asking, “Have you quit smoking?” The women say, “No, I’ve never smoked!”

As we talked about cigarettes, a friend said this: “People used to say, ‘If a woman wants to smoke on the street, she has to be pretty enough that a hundred men would give her a light.’” I let out a screech when I heard this. That expression means that not only do women need men to give them a light, but that if a woman dares to smoke on the street, she’d better be that attractive. And if she’s not? That makes the action more daring, and the woman a more tempting target of anger.

While smoking, the same question keeps running through my head. “What the hell is a cigarette?” Types of discomfort that I didn’t used to feel when I had no interest in cigarettes are now coming to the fore. This discomfort is not about smoking itself, but about smoking as a woman. A woman who doesn’t smoke is the default. I, of course, long saw cigarettes as something connected to men, including my father. I considered them a taboo that had nothing to do with me, as the smell was unpleasant, the butts and mucus on the ground were gross, and the way that the smoke could enter my body against my will made me feel powerless.

Men on the other hand, are often pressured to smoke, I’ve heard. An acquaintance coming back from his military service said that there, if you don’t smoke when the older soldiers tell you to, you’ll get looked at as “the kid who can’t even do that”. He also said that because male smoking culture, like drinking culture, is really about building relationships, it’s hard to excuse yourself from a group of smokers.

Women and smoking: is she wild or cheap?

Smoking doesn’t belong in society’s idea of femininity. Because of this outdated-but-strong idea, women who smoke are considered strange and wild. They are seen as not-well-brought-up or cheap. When I see people who say that women must become mothers and that (only) cigarettes are bad for their bodies, I want to say this: if you’re so worried about women’s health, pay attention to the fine dust whose concentration levels of are skyrocketing right now, to genetically modified foods, dating violence, rape, and murder. And I want to let them know that they shouldn’t recklessly make gendered assumptions about other individuals’ lives, because women aren’t born for the sole purpose of becoming mothers.

Time for a smoke   ⓒSaebyeok

In my writing group, a group member with short hair revealed that people always criticize her by saying, “Grow out your hair” and, “Some woman you are” to her. As someone who had never had short hair, her experiences were unfamiliar to me. I listened to the discomforts suffered by women with short hair because of the stereotype that women’s hair must be past a certain length, and I thought about the other benefits that I had unthinkingly enjoyed by coincidentally conforming to feminine norms.

Smoking, tattoos, independent sexuality, masturbation, etc. – behavior that should be respected as a personal choice is in reality limited by one’s gender. If I get a tattoo or regularly smoke out in the open, what will happen in the future? When I cut my hair short, don’t diet compulsorily, don’t act demure, and live like I want to, what kind of world will open up to me?

But avoiding the elaborate and unyielding standards of femininity doesn’t mean that they disappear. I can’t guess how many more lines will trip me up as I go on with my life. Or how many invisible lines exist around me. I worry that I am unwittingly enjoying a limited form of freedom. With the addition of just a cigarette to my daily life, my worries have grown into a mountain.

This morning I got up, went to the balcony, and lit a cigarette. I inhaled and exhaled still-cold air with the smoke, and a slight dizziness dimmed my murky thoughts. Why does this cause such contempt, I wondered. I tapped my ashes and started to make breakfast. The woman who smokes, the thing that makes you throw a fit – that’s me. And my morning cigarette, which has nothing to do with you, is delicious.

* Original article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7830