Tiny Tuesday!

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2022 at 1:6 scale, here is another of the dolls from Mattel’s Inspiring Women Series.

I found this doll I think last October when I was in Barnes & Noble. The associate who checked me out was surprised and said he hadn’t been aware the store had the doll and he thought it was great. I got the sense that he might be going upstairs to put one on hold for himself–not because he collects Barbies, but because of his admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was the longest-serving First Lady in the U.S. White House as wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but there is so much more to know about her. I recommend a crash course via her Wikipedia entry to get a sense of the complex woman she was and the human rights advocate she became.

My mother, having been a child during the Depression, was a huge supporter of both FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. On one of our vacation trips to Callaway Gardens in Georgia, my parents took Lynne and me to visit The Little White House, the Roosevelts’ home in Warm Springs, Georgia.

I’m sure that trip contributed to my interest in the Roosevelts, as well as being folded into my own early passion for women’s rights and civil rights. As always, for me, knowing about the more human qualities of a trailblazer actually makes a person more inspirational. We are not saints; none of us are without flaws. Roosevelt made changes in herself and in the world that remind me that we can all be better, do better.

I can’t let this date pass without expressing my desire to pick up the phone and wish one of my more personal life’s inspirations a happy birthday. I miss you and love you always, MVP.