Articles, mostly produced by men, dealt with topics of interest to contemporary women readers such as breast binding and marriage.

[4] Explaining the rationale behind the establishment of the Emancipation Pictorial, editor Zhou Jianyun wrote in the first issue: Eight years since the founding of the Republic of China, though the name has changed, the content remains the same; though the emperor has been removed, the people are still slaves; though global trends are calling, the Chinese people's thinking has not changed.

Even if educated women, relying on the power of their fathers, brothers, and husbands, may be able to get an official position.

[14] Topics discussed in the Emancipation Pictorial included breast binding, women's education, and marital problems.

[10] One article by Zhen Xin opposed the use of the word 女士 (nǚshì; 'lady'), holding that it was rooted in a slave mentality and normally used by women seeking to distinguish themselves from their peers.

[16] Early issues used the third-person pronoun 伊 (yī) to refer to women; in the July 1921 issue, Emancipation Pictorial used the word 她 (tā) in a cartoon by Lin Xin, which the linguist Huang Xingtao describes as likely the pronoun's first usage in an artistic work.

[8] The Emancipation Pictorial was illustrated with photographs and cartoons, which were deemed better for attracting readers[5] and more readily able to reach the lower and middle classes.

As examples of the first, she notes illustrations of a woman smothered by a weight labelled "male supremacy",[d] as well as depictions of fortune telling.

Means of emancipation, meanwhile, included an illustration depicting a Statue of Liberty-like figure bearing a torch composed of the words "knowledge", "autonomy", and "personality".

[e] For the future of emancipation, illustrations depicted women as seamstresses, typists, and police officers, conveying the possibility of employment outside the home.

Realistic illustrations could be used to promote a sort of modern ideal for achievement, or to depict scenes from a literary text to create a picture narrative.