Jean Kilbourne (born January 4, 1943) is an American educator, former model, filmmaker, author and activist, who is known as a pioneer of feminist advertising criticism and advocacy of media literacy. In the 1970s she was one of the top three requested speakers at college campuses in Northern America.

Her 1979 documentary, Killing Us Softly, has been used in several fields of academy ranging from psychology to communications for several decades. In 2019, Jennifer Pozner said her points were more compelling than ever.

Kilbourne was born in Junction City, Kansas. Her mother died when she was 9. She grew up in Hingham, Massachusetts. She started smoking when she was 13. She told Deseret News that quitting was the hardest thing she'd ever done. She graduated from Hingham High School in 1960.

Kilbourne has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Wellesley College and holds a Master of Arts and Doctorate in Education from Boston University.

At the time of her graduation from Wellesley, it was difficult for women to find jobs. Kilbourne had to work as a waitress and as a model while she attended secretarial school to find work in her field. She described her work as a model "soul-destroying," describing a culture of sexual harassment. She then obtained a job at the BBC working as a secretary. In 1969, she started teaching at Norwell High School. Upon obtaining her MA, she taught at Emerson College until 1975.

In 1968, Kilbourne saw an ad for Ovulen 21, a birth control pill, which said it worked "the way a woman thinks—by weekdays" instead of by their menstrual cycles with pictures of various stereotypical tasks for a housewife. She said the ad changed her life. She began to watch for patterns in advertisements she saw and clipped them to put on her refrigerator at home. She said she noticed a trend of advertisements demeaning to women and some were "shockingly violent." She then shifted her career from teaching to academia and educating the public about how the media shapes society.

Early in her scholarly career, Kilbourne explored the connection between advertising and several public health issues, including violence against women, eating disorders, and addiction, and launched a movement to promote media literacy as a way to prevent these problems. An idea that diverged significantly from the mainstream at the time, this approach has since become mainstream and an integral part of most prevention programs. She testified twice before the United States Congress and advised two Surgeons General of the United States on the impact of Joe Camel, a cartoon mascot for Camel brand cigarettes, on children, and other advertising around alcohol and the portrayal of women. Kilbourne said that the advertising perpetuates unrealistic, unobtainable ideals and creates a culture of violence toward women in which they are objectified and dehumanized. Kilbourne believes that addictions are a political tool.

Kilbourne was in the 2011 documentary Miss Representation.