Gender is one of the factors that influences patterns of smoking prevalence and the tobacco industry tactics to target both women and men. For the last couple of years, the tobacco industry continues to exploit social, cultural and economic differences between gender roles. Tobacco use might be considered as an indicator of social, political norms and believes when there is a division between feminism and patriarchy, feminine rebellion or intensified femininity and masculine superiority or positive masculinity. Modern trends that promote gender equity are becoming a foundation for tobacco marketing aimed at women and particularly young girls in Europe. On the other hand, women are not equally represented in the leadership of tobacco-control policy-making and implementation. The tobacco industry has been constantly rebranding itself and its tools to appeal to young men and women. Mainstream tobacco control is contrary to the tobacco industry tactics has been focused on the ideas of “traditional” gender roles. Therefore, wider efforts to promote leadership in tobacco control to merge gender issues with tobacco control advocacy, policy-making, health promotion and human rights to address inequities due to gender, power, income, freedom and discrimination. More research and carefully planned advocacy strategies and campaigns to raise awareness and call to action to promote tobacco endgame could incorporate gender theory to upgrade tobacco control.
The proposed symposium offers a platform where all interested conference attendees will have an opportunity to discuss recent gender-related trends in Europe, how to better plan for the integration of both sex and gender into all tobacco control activities and how to increase women representation and leadership of tobacco control policy-making and implementation processes.