Kilbourne discusses sexism in advertising, how the industry has depicted female bodies over the years and to what extent women and girls are affected by these images. She is particularly concerned about ads for alcohol and cigarettes and how the industry aims to create addicts. She also focuses on violence and pornography, and on advertisements for food, cars and diet aids. Advertisers promise to cure the symptoms of many of society's public health and social problems with products, according to the writer, who suggests that instead the underlying problems should be solved. Gender inequality produces difference, and the differences produced are then used to justify gender inequality.
Many researchers consider that the reverse is true.
The writer, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, explains that while sex refers to the biological differences between women and men, gender refers to the meanings societies attach to these differences. Gender pertains to sex roles and issues of power, inequality and hierarchy. The writer illustrates how gender inequality leads to assumptions of gender difference and how strongly gender has influenced all spheres of life in all eras and places. He analyzes gender development, the gendered family, gender and violence, and gender in education and in the workplace. Kimmel is optimistic about the future and believes that the apparent differences between men and women will lessen as gender inequality decreases.