“Women’s feelings about themselves were very different from those of men while smoking cigars.

“Women responded that they feel powerful (24%), attractive (25%), strong (15%), fun (43%), and rebellious (22%) when cigar smoking. Men, when asked the same question, responded in much lower numbers. Instead, men felt peaceful when smoking cigars (97%), a sentiment that was shared by 76% of women.”

That’s one of the intriguing findings of a recent survey about women and cigars conducted by the Association for Women Cigar Smokers in cooperation with Cigar Research.com

The survey, conducted in mid-2008, asked 83 women and 100 men about their cigar-smoking habits. Some of the findings:

• On average, the female smokers enjoy 3-5 cigars per month, an average of about one per week. However, 13% said they smoked one cigar a day and seven percent said they smoked two per day!

• On cigar spending, 43% said they spent between $100 and $500 per year but 24% reported spending of $501-1,000 annually.

• On brand selection, a staggering 82% said their “personal experience with a brand” was the most important factor. Packaging wasn’t nearly as important: 73% said they were indifferent to box design and 55% said they were unimpressed by label design.

• Why do women smoke cigars? Some 59% of the women surveyed said their motivation was simply the taste of cigars.

• The demographics of the 83 female smokers ranged from age 18 to 87, with the average age at 40 with representation spread across the U.S. In terms of years smoking cigars, the average of 6.3 years, with one respondent having smoked cigars for 78 years!

Both the men and women surveyed said they bought a lot of their cigars online, but women noted that they were attracted to stores in which they felt “comfortable.” Other attributes such as location, lounges and selection were much less important.

The conclusion? The survey noted “Women are smoking a lot of cigars, spending money on cigars, reading cigar magazines and should not be overlooked.”