The idea that respectable women do not smoke in public persisted for quite some time. In 1978 I was going out with a Belgian woman, and she certainly felt that way and would not smoke in public.

All of those Virginia Slims advertisements are totally cringe worthy. They were then and they still are now.

And even to this day the main method of weight control utilized by French women is cigarettes and coffee so that has not gone away either despite modern health consciousness.