I just took up pipe smoking about 2 months ago and don't really have a community here in Thailand. I suspect I'm the only woman pipe smoker here in the country, if not the only pipe smoker at all. My aunt said to me that women don't smoke pipe (like it's a fact of nature) but I'm familiar with the image of the Dowager Empress of the last Ching Dynasty of old imperial China, smoking the most exquisite pipe (though I suspect it might be opium and not Peterson's Irish Oak that she put in that gorgeous long-stem, Churchwarden styled pipe.) I also recall the image of a woman French writer George Sand smoking pipe. So, maybe it's a mis-perception that women don't smoke pipe, but a pervasive one. I just want to prove to myself and to her that women can and do enjoy good tobacco like anyone else. There are but a few exquisite pleasures in life, it would be unwise to miss out on one just because you're a woman. So just want to say hi to all the women out there. Please make yourself known, for the generations of women pipe-smokers to come. River.