What A Doll GetSetClub.com sells dolls with realistic bodies and careers.
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Jennifer Baker's line of dolls is meant to do more thanentertain children. The 35-year-old former toy company costumedesigner wants her products to change the way girls think aboutthemselves and their possibilities. Her five dolls have realisticbodies, proportioned like healthy, athletic young women, and theplay sets that accompany them allow girls to imagine themselves infive careers: scientist, journalist, banker, artist and beautysalon owner.
"Growing up, I saw how meaningful my mother's job as ateacher was to her," says Baker, who lives and works inPhiladelphia. "Work can provide a lot of personalgratification. It's important to teach children that work isexciting. This idea is missing from a lot of children'sproducts."
Baker initially proposed the line of dolls in 1994 while workingfor Tyco Toys, but industry executives were unwilling to take arisk on a product they viewed as too unconventional. Baker felt sopassionately about her idea, however, that she decided to producethe dolls herself. "In its advertisements, the toy industryshows girls combing a doll's hair and cradling it, but I knewfrom my own experience that's not how kids play withdolls," says Baker, a tomboy who liked to take her dolls on"camping trips," build furniture for them and use them as"surgery" subjects. "I wanted to help kids play withdolls the way they really want to."
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