“Real” Woman: Barbara Walters The “real” woman that I have chosen to write about is Barbara Walters. Walters is an inspiration to young woman because she was the first female to co-anchor on an evening news network program. A character that can relate to Walters in Marlene from the play “Top Girls” by Caryl Churchill because both Walters and Marlene had to work hard and surpass the men in their field of work. Analyzing Walters’s representation in the media does continue to the tradition that women are lower than men in society. It also changes this tradition because Walters overcame it when she was first announced as the first female co-host on the Today show and then first female to ever co-anchor. This paved the pathway for all women…show more content… Like Walters, Marlene is working in a field that is dominated by men and has to do her best to surpass them. Walters at the time, was dealing with sexiest men who were insulted when they had to share the spotlight with a women. Men belittled Walters because she was female and women during the 1960s and 1970s were not seen as successful, especially not a men field of work. Walters had to have thick skin in order to ignore what the media and other people were calling her. Marlene followed Walters by being tough and taking down anyone who got in her way. There is one big difference between Marlene and Walters, which is that Walters had an adopted daughter, Jackie, who she loved and cared for deeply. On the other hand, Marlene also had a daughter, Angie, but she gave Angie away to her sister. Marlene didn’t want Angie to get in the way of her…show more content… Men in the same business as Walters believed that she was only hired to be just a pretty face (Barbara Walters Biography). Walters’s representation does continue the tradition of women being lower then men in society. Looking at Walters early career shows that Walters had to prove that she was better. All of her male colleagues were infuriated because of her success. They still believed that women shouldn’t have male jobs because that was not their role in society. It was stated earlier that TV executives would rather have an actress as a set decoration than have a female reporter, which shows how men of this time period looked at women as if they were some kind of object they could stare at (Walters Becomes First Female Co-anchor). Even though Walters’s representation went on saying she was a failure, she was able to the tradition that men were superior to women. When Walters was announced to be the first female co-anchor, she paved the pathway for all women to surpass men. She especially gave hope to women in the same field of business as her because they will look at her accomplishments and believe that they too can be successful. Walters was able to contradict this tradition by being a success in a work field dominated by men. She has upset the idea that men are more successful than women because she beat them at their own