I think Bernays' appeal to women was done directly for his tobacco clients, but was done indirectly to promote the new Keynesian ideal coming into play around that time that ever-rising levels of consumption were necessary for economic growth. John Maynard Keynes was addressing women because he saw them as the family "shoppers" and he would tell them directly on radio to go out and shop for the good of Britain (his economic views were also adopted in the U.S., especially by FDR). One aspect of early feminism was to get the gender more likely to shop to enter the workforce so families, under the females' financial direction, could drastically increase their consumption levels.
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