Mattel, Barbie & Women’s History
Times are changing and for the better. Mattel is transforming the likeness of historical women into Barbie dolls to honor their achievements. It’s part of their Inspiring Women series.
Ida B. Wells. Prominent Black American journalist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells, was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862 during the Civil War, went on to break boundaries as a prominent suffragist fighting to expand the right to vote.
Throughout her career she called out white suffragists and politicians for their racism and exclusionist views, fought for equal education for Black children and young people, a free press, women’s rights, civil rights, and against lynching.
Wells also won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for her “courageous reporting on the horrific and vicious violence against African Americans during the era of lynching” and helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Florence Nightingale. A British nurse, social reformer and statistician, Florence Nightingale is best known as the founder of modern nursing.
At the request of the British government during the Crimean War in the 1850s, she and a delegation of nurses improved conditions at a base hospital in Constantinople despite the hostility they faced from the doctors. They implemented basic standards of care like applying clean dressings and bathing patients.
Using the money she received for these efforts, she established a hospital and nurse training school in London. Using the meticulous records she kept during the war, along with her careful plotting, colorful visualizations of data, and statistical analysis, she helped make the case for the importance of hygiene in all medical care.
Billie Jean King. The female tennis player who won the Battle of the Sexes against Bobby Riggs in 1973, Billie Jean King was a champion of women’s rights beyond the tennis court. Responding to gender pay disparity, she and nine other female players broke from the tennis establishment and founded the Women’s Tennis Association.
When she threatened to boycott the 1973 U.S. Open, it became the first major tournament to award equal prize money to both sexes. She became the first woman to be named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated.
Her activism extended to LGBTQ equality after she was publicly outed as a lesbian in the 1980’s and lost her endorsement deals. In 2009, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Maya Angelou. American poet, memoirist, civil rights activist and teacher, Maya Angelou rose to international prominence with the 1970 publication of her well-known book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The book recounts cruel racism, backbreaking poverty, and the horrific rape she experienced at the age of eight, after which she stopped speaking for five years.
During the 1970s, the book was banned in many schools. Her honesty about having been sexually abused opened a subject matter that had long been taboo in the culture. Unfortunately, in today’s political climate, there have been calls, once again, to have the book banned from schools.
Maya Angelou has been described as an expert on new beginnings and a champion of the human spirit.
We applaud Mattel’s efforts. What a wonderful way to teach young girls, and boys, and their parents, about these astonishing and amazing women.