Lectures

Dr. Kilbourne has been what The Boston Globe described as “a superstar lecturer” for many years. She has twice received the Lecturer of the Year award from the National Association for Campus Activities. Students, faculty and staff from over 1000 colleges and universities vote for the recipient of this award.

She has lectured at about one-half of all the colleges and universities in the United States and all of the major universities in Canada, as well as scores of private and public schools. She is also sought after as a keynote speaker at a wide range of conferences, including those focusing on addictions and public health, violence, women, and the media. Her audiences range in size from several hundred to several thousand, and include college students, people at a town hall forum in Nebraska, members of a church in New Hampshire, inmates and officials of the Georgia Department of Corrections, addictions experts at an international conference in Rio de Janeiro, and doctors at Psychiatric Grand Rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital.

She is known for her wit and warmth and her ability to present provocative topics in a way that unites rather than divides, that encourages dialogue, and that moves and empowers people to take action in their own and in society’s interest. A member of the Italian Parliament said, “Hearing Jean Kilbourne is a profound experience. Audiences leave her feeling that they have heard much more than another lecture, for she teaches them to see themselves and their world differently.” Students at Harvard Business School responded to her lecture with a standing ovation and a letter stating, “The importance of your research has not been lost on the Harvard Business School students as was evidenced by the remarkable turnout . . . The entire presentation will stand out as a highlight of our education here.”

Even advertisers sometimes respond positively, as in an AdWeek editorial: “After listening to Jean Kilbourne, I would never doubt her intellectual honesty. While she bills herself as a critic of advertising, she is more akin to a prophet calling out in the wilderness for fundamental change in the way we communicate publicly with one another.”

Films and Videos

Dr. Kilbourne has made several award-winning documentary films based on her lectures. They are used widely throughout the world. Her first film Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women (and the remakes Still Killing Us Softly and Killing Us Softly 3) are among the most popular educational films of all time. Jay Carr, film critic for The Boston Globe, wrote, “With skill, humor and acuteness, Kilbourne encourages action against these society-weakening images. Never shrill, her indictment is, if anything, understated.” Her other videos include Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol & Tobacco, Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies & Alcohol, Slim Hopes, Pack of Lies, and Calling the Shots.

Publications

Dr. Kilbourne’s book, Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, was published in paperback by Simon & Schuster in 2000. Originally published in hardcover in 1999 as Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising, it won the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology and was called by Publishers Weekly, “a profound work that is required reading for informed consumers.”

She has also written many articles, including editorials in The New York Times, the International Journal of Advertising, USA Today and The Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association. She has contributed chapters to many books, including Psychology and Consumer Culture, Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders, Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Reviews, and TV and Teens: Experts Look at the Issues. Her articles are frequently reprinted in textbooks, such as Rereading America and Impact of Mass Media. Through her lectures, films, and articles, many of her original ideas and concepts have become widely known and used. These include the concepts of the tyranny of the beauty ideal, the dismemberment of women’s bodies in advertising, the connection of the sexualization of children with fear of powerful women, the twin themes of liberation and weight control exploited in tobacco advertising, the targeting of alcoholics by the alcohol industry, addiction as a love affair, censorship of the media on behalf of advertisers, and many others.

Government Work

Dr. Kilbourne is internationally recognized as an expert on addictions, gender issues, and the media. She served as an advisor to former Surgeons General C. Everett Koop and Antonia Novello and has testified for the U.S. Congress. In 1993 she was appointed by the US Secretary of Health and Human Services to the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In Massachusetts, she serves on the Governor’s Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence and has advised the Attorney General. She was also the keynote speaker for a conference on gender bias for all of the judges in the state. Deeply involved in the national campaign to stop the marketing of tobacco products to young people, she was featured in a television special on this issue hosted by President Clinton and Linda Ellerbee.

Media Coverage

Reporters from all over the country rely on Jean Kilbourne as an accurate and interesting source. She has been interviewed by Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, and The Boston Globe, among many other publications. She has been a guest on hundreds of television and radio programs, including Newshour with Jim Lehrer, On the Record with Bob Costas, All Things Considered, The Today Show, 20/20, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Academic Credentials

Kilbourne’s academic credentials include a B.A. in English from Wellesley College and a doctorate in education from Boston University. Upon her graduation, she received an award from Wellesley that enabled her to spend three years in Europe, working for the British Broadcasting Corporation in London and for a French film company in Paris. She has been a Visiting Research Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women since 1984. She has served on many national boards of directors and advisory councils, including those of ACME (Action Coalition for Media Education), DADs (Dads & Daughters), the Junior League, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the Media Education Foundation, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, and the Teen Talking Circles Project.

She has received many awards, including the Myra Sadker Equity Award and awards from the Academy for Eating Disorders, the Entertainment Industries Council, the National Council on Alcoholism, the Women’s Action Alliance, and the National Organization for Women. In 2004 she was given the keys to Kansas City and received an honorary doctorate from Westfield State College that proclaimed, “Through research informed by a deep sense of justice, your insights lead us from consumerism to consciousness.” She also received a most unusual tribute in 2004 when an all-female punk rock band in Canada named itself Kilbourne in her honor. In 1995 she received the WIN (Women’s Image Now) Award from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Previous recipients include Ida Lupino, Barbara Walters, and Betty Furness. The presenter of this award said, “No one in the world has done more to improve the image of women in the media than Jean Kilbourne.”

Awards