Marjorie Williams comes out bravely against women smoking in today’s Washington Post. Or, more accurately, she berates feminist organizations for not joining the war against tobacco companies. But why on earth should they? No-one alive today is unaware of the risks of smoking. If women want to smoke, why should feminist organizations try to stop them? Isn’t feminism about choice and isn’t smoking a choice? Williams even berates the cigarette companies for helping finance a whole array of feminist groups and mocks Philip Morris for funding programs to help battered women. That’ll teach them to do something that actually, tangibly benefits women. As usual with nanny-liberals (and some nanny-conservatives), Williams’ main worry is that women cannot resist the lures of advertizing. But this argument infantilizes women and teenage girls even further. They’re not pawns of ads. They’re women deciding to take their own risks and live their own lives. It says something about what has happened to feminism that this is something we’re now supposed to regret rather than celebrate.

]]>