The Judgment of Gender: How Women are Centered and Silenced in Pop Culture, with media scholar and author Allison T. Butler. Butler will discuss her new book citing historic examples of how women are represented and treated in popular culture, tying her thesis to more current events which she analyzes through a critical media literacy lens.

Allison T. Butler, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer II, Associate Chair, and Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Butler is the author of multiple books on media literacy and education, including the co-authored The media and me: A guide to critical media literacy (Seven Stories Press, 2022), the only media literacy text written specifically for young audiences, Surveillance education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (Routledge, 2024; co-authored with Nolan Higdon); and, most recently, The judgment of gender: How pop culture centers and silences women (Censored Press, 2026). Butler serves as the Vice President on the Media Freedom Foundation, which fosters work in independent media.