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1) I don’t agree that todays discrimination against smokers is equivalent to now illegal racial and gender discrimination years ago. This is because, smoking has got nothing to do with the societys perception towards smokers. Smoking is being accepted as a social norm by many individuals. Media has been portraying smokers and smoking as a cool and normal thing to be done. Although few individuals in the society has been fighting against smokers, but if we the majority society, don’t really have an issue about smokers.
Moreover, smokers also have their own protection law. In the United States Smoker Protection Laws are state statutes that prevent employers from discriminating against employees for using tobacco products. So this shows that there are not many discrimination against smokers. Although employers can keep their workplace, smoke free, they cant stop their workers form smoking during their free time. Illegal racial and gender discrimination however was a serious issue back then. People was more open to make discrimination against race and gender.
It is also mportant to keep in mind that there was no any law amended to protect equal racial and gender rights at that time. Society wasn’t really into accepting people from other races or gender holding higher position or post in work place. So they were very open in discriminating. Since their victim of discrimination are minorities, there is nothing can be done. Compared to smokers. They are in majority numbers, so their chances of getting discriminated are lower, compared to racial and gender discrimination victims. This is because, society always attacks the minority or weaker race or gender.