Quick Chat with Kimberly Wolf, Ed.M.’09

You wrote in your new book, Talk with Her, that by the time you were a freshman in college, you knew you wanted a "career in girlhood." What exactly did you envision?
Having faced my own challenges and talked many of my friends through their struggles in our high school years, I saw a need for more resources to support girls’ wellbeing. At the same time, I was growing up in Hollywood’s backyard, and I became a deep believer in the media as a channel for quality information. From the time I started college, I was focused on combining the allure of pop culture media with quality educational content to reach teenagers.  

Your book, as you write in the subtitle, is a dad's essential guide to raising healthy, confident daughters. Why focus on dads?
There’s a tension in the broader cultural conversation around fatherhood. There are great expectations of men to parent in ways that were never expected in generations past, yet, there are no specific resources to light the way for men. Women are still seen as default parents, and parenting books are most often geared toward them. Men often feel left out of the conversation, and so I wrote Talk with Her to give fathers a way in, a framework for understanding their roles and their potential to have broad-ranging positive impacts on their daughters.

What made you agree to write the Barbie essay for the magazine?
I was honored to be asked to write this piece! Barbie is the perfect example of a film that addresses serious, discussion-worthy topics with artfulness and humor. It’s an academic film that, without taking itself too seriously, entertains, draws people in, and invites us to think critically. I think it’s brilliant.

Are you working on any new projects? 
I am working with independent schools across the country designing and leading individualized, inclusive love and sexuality programming. But, in addition to having a packed consulting and speaking schedule, I always have new projects on the horizon. I can’t help it. Right now, I’m working on a children’s book (my experience is in teenagers, but I have two toddler boys). And I’m building an online course for parents.