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Humanitarian, scientist and activist Dr. Jane Goodall has become the latest person to have a doll added to the Barbie Inspiring Women Series.
Goodall, a renowned ethologist and conservationist known for her work with chimpanzees, is being honored with the Barbie in her likeness just in time for World Chimpanzee Day on July 14. The doll also celebrates the 62nd anniversary of Goodall’s first journey to Gombe National Park in Tanzania.
The Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie comes with a notebook and a pair of binoculars. She is wearing field attire, including a khaki shirt, shorts and boots. Also included is a figure inspired by one of her most famous subjects, chimpanzee David Graybeard. Priced at $35, the Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie is available through the Mattel Creations store, at Walmart and on Amazon.
“My entire career, I’ve wanted to help inspire kids to be curious and explore the world around them — just like I did when I first traveled to Tanzania 62 years ago. I’m thrilled to partner with Barbie and encourage young children to learn from their environment and feel a sense that they can make a difference,” Goodall said in a press release. “Through this partnership, I hope to inspire the next generation of eco-leaders to join me in protecting our planet and remind them they can be anything, anywhere — on the field, in the lab and at the table.”
The doll is part of a 2022 focus on green careers; it’s made from a minimum of 75% recycled plastic and is the first doll in the Inspiring Women Series to be made from recycled materials. Mattel, in conjunction with the Jane Goodall Institute, has also released a four-doll 2022 Career of the Year four-doll set called the Barbie Eco-Leadership team, featuring an environmental advocate, a chief sustainability officer, a renewable energy engineer and a conservation scientist.
Goodall began her career in 1960, traveling from England to what is now Tanzania. Armed with only a notebook, binoculars and, according to her website, “her fascination with wildlife,” she began researching chimpanzees, human’s closest living relatives. Among other accomplishments, she helped set a new standard for how behavioral studies are done in the wild, spearheaded efforts to improve conditions for chimpanzees at medical research facilities, and set up refuges for chimps freed from these facilities or orphaned by the bushmeat trade.
Today, at age 88, she is still traveling the world to speak about the threats facing chimpanzees and other environmental crises. She currently has a podcast called “The Jane Goodall Hopecast,” in which she discusses her life and hosts other “change-making” guests.
Other dolls in the Inspiring Women Series, which pays tribute to courageous history-making women who helped paved the way for future generations, include Ida B. Wells, Billie Jean King, Dr. Maya Angelou, Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller. Keller was the first person with deafblindness to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Will you be purchasing the Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie Inspiring Women doll?
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