The very idea of equality for all human beings is a major topic of conversation anywhere you go. Eventually this conversation comes down to the equality for women. Whether it is was 1920, when they were awarded the right to vote, or the ongoing worldwide conversation of equal wages for equal work, women have been fighting for everything since the beginning of time. Well maybe not everything.
Although, there’s a general stigma about women smoking cigars and the rarity of its nature, it turns out that women have been smoking cigars regularly since the mid-18th century.
Women were as equally involved in the cigar and tobacco industry as men. They would help grow, gather, and process the tobacco used in the cigars since its very infancy, so it’s only natural that they would partake in the fruits of their labor. If you fast forward about 100 years to the mid-19th century in France, women were put off by the tasteless experience of cigarettes and preferred the bolder taste of cigars. Although it was often said that you could easily pick out the “nouveau riche” (a derogatory term meaning new money) by a woman smoking a cigar, nonetheless, it was a status symbol for the rich and wealthy.
Even still, in the mid-20th century, when the movie industry wrote a character for a woman smoking a cigar, it was usually some montage taking said woman from rags to riches, showing her that any fine woman knows how to handle her cigars. There was always an aura of mystery surrounding the woman, and seemed to catch the eye of all the men.
As we’ve busted in to the 21st century, and women are doing just about anything they want to do, so are the days of women smoking cigars as well. In most cases, it gives women a strong and independent appearance. In addition to this, it may be appealing because it shows that she has an open-mind and sustains an adventurous lifestyle, which can be very desirable. At the very least, if you’re a woman, and you don’t want to actually smoke a cigar, it would go a long way to at least understand and accept it for this very reason.
In three-hundred years, women have come a long way for equality, but apparently they never had to fight for the right to enjoy the smooth, rich flavor of a good cigar.