Jane Goodall

But Lewis never gave up.

So in the end, they said, oh, well, all right, but you must bring someone with her.

And who volunteered to come for the first four months but that same amazing mother?

Quite honestly, it never occurred to me.

I mean, I grew up in a family of very strong women.

There was, you know, when the war started, my father joined up.

Mom, my sister, and I went to live with her mother.

And my mother had two other sisters living in the house.

And then every weekend, or most weekends, my uncle would come.

He was the one male presence.

And it just never occurred to me to question that I would be able to do what I wanted.

It just didn't enter my thinking that I couldn't do some things because I was a woman.

So when Leakey suggested I went out, we didn't actually talk about it much.

as being strange that I was a female.

And it wasn't until the British authorities started saying they were horrified that I realized it was perhaps a little strange at the time.

But he just felt that women would be more patient and therefore make better observers.

Well, no, because at the same time, he taught me that I had to be very careful and that animals were dangerous or could be.

And that, for example, if you got between a mother and her young, you'd be in big, big trouble.

If you startled an animal, you'd be in big trouble.

and that you might come across some creature who'd been wounded and who hated people.