As an Ode to Primatologist Jane Goodall Mattel Creates a Doll in Her Likeness

English Primatologist Jane Goodall always desired her own doll to inspire young girls. The desire has finally come true as Mattel Inc has created a doll in her likeness. 

As part of its Inspiring Women Series and as an ode to Jane Goodall for her intense 60 year study on wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania as well as her conservation efforts,  Mattel created a Barbie Doll. 

The doll has been made of recycled plastic. 

The doll is dressed in Khaki shorts with a notebook in her hand and a pair of binoculars around her neck. David Greybeard is by her side, a replica of the first chimpanzee to trust the primatologist as she conducted her research at Gombe National Park. 

“I wanted a doll to be me even before this idea came up. I've seen...little girls playing with Barbie dolls and certainly at the beginning, they were all very girly girly and I thought little girls need...some choice,” Goodall told Reuters.

“Mattel has changed its range of dolls and there's all kinds of astronauts and doctors and things like that. So many children learn about me at school. They'll be thrilled to have the Barbie doll.”

“When I got to Gombe, it was beautiful, my dream had come true," she said. "But for four months the chimps ran away from me...so although the forest was wonderful, I couldn't enjoy it until this David Greybeard lost his fear and helped the others to lose their fear too.”

Mattel said it would also partner with the Jane Goodall Institute and her youth service movement Roots & Shoots to help teach children about their environmental impact.

"I see us at the mouth of a very long, very dark tunnel with a little shining star at the end and it's no good sitting at the mouth of the tunnel and saying 'Oh, I hope that star comes to us.' Hope is about action," Goodall said.

"We... work around all these obstacles between us and the star, which is climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, unsustainable lifestyles, pollution, you name it. And as we go along the tunnel, we reach out to others because there are people working on each one of these problems but so often they're working in silos."