Barbara Walters Legacy
Barbara Jill Walters was born September 25, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts to Lou and Dena Walters. She grew up in Boston, Miami, and New York. Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York with a bachelor’s degree in English. Soon after graduation, Walters landed her first job in journalism. Though Walters is a famed television journalist today, she indeed broke barriers and paved the way for women in broadcasting. Moreover, women today are taken much more serious role on TV because she battled her way through a deeply sexist world, as did the women of the 19th century fighting for their independence, respect, and equal rights.
Walters’s parents were born Jewish, though they did not practicing Judaism. Lou Walters was a successful nightclub impresario/producer.…show more content… High unemployment rates among their husband and sons forced many white wives to enter the labor market for the first time in the 1930’s (Jones, p. 512). Black women suffered more because they were limited to which jobs they could have. Their pay was considerably lower and job opportunities consisted mainly of domestic work. Black women where force to take less pay than white women because they had no other options. It would be decades before black women would hold the title of co-host on any television network.
World War II began in 1937, which changed the view of women working outside the home. Ruth Milkman’s essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II” is consistent with the views of woman working in factories and plants doing men’s duties and getting more pay while a lot of men were away at war. The war’s end generated renewed upheaval in the sexual division of labor (Milkman, p. 558). This gave woman the strength and encouragement as a female society to keep working after the