A SORORITY girl turned CIA and FBI agent has revealed how she battled against workplace sexism to become a top terrorist hunter.

Tracy Walder says she was branded "Malibu Barbie" by a top African official and told her suit was "too distracting" by male bosses.

4 Tracey Walder began work at the CIA aged just 21 Credit: Twitter

Now in a tell-all book she recalls how she battled against expectations to join America's most coveted intelligent agencies.

When she arrived at the University of Southern California in 1996 she was determined to become a schoolteacher.

The self-professed blonde says she found it easy to slot into sorority life with scores of other students who looked just like her.

Speaking in her new memoir, The Unexpected Spy From CIA to The FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World’s Most Notorious Terrorists, she says Delta Gamma's "built-in social life" allowed her to very happily "blend into the crowd".

But one day at a college careers fair she surprised herself, handing over a resume to a bored-looking lone CIA recruiter.

He asked her if she wanted to work for the Central Intelligence Agency and at that point, Tracy says, she truly knew that she did.

In her new book, Tracy talks about how her perceived "girlishness" discouraged people - they were surprised to learn she had a passion for history and was a "news junkie".

4 At 21, Tracey was suddenly fighting terrorists the world over

But soon her girly pink dorm room was to be graced by a CIA interviewer, there to grill her sorority sisters to ensure Tracy was made of the right stuff.

She had already undergone gruelling lie detector tests and interviews to get to this stage - and to her delight, she was accepted.

At just 21, Walder began working as a Staff Operations Officer, specialising in al Qaeda.

She travelled the world over interviewing various terrorists, becoming entrenched in global terrorist networks.

Tracy writes how she was terrified of Osama Bin Laden having caught a few clips from a 1997 interview with the terror chief that chilled her to her core.

And her terror was only heightened following al-Qaeda's devastating 9/11 attack.

She writes: "The plane might as well have crashed into the south side of my body. The pain, the guilt, the sense that my failures were resulting in lives lost ... erased all other thoughts".

From then on in there was a huge push from the CIA to link al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.

Walder was assigned to an elite terrorism unit where she flitted between Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

She writes: "I was ready to even the score".

Her work was tough, made tougher by the slew of male agents she had to battle with to be taken seriously.

Walder recounts how when travelling across Africa she encountered one liaison officer who dismissed her as "Malibu Barbie".

Facing mounting pressure to find a link between al Qaueda and Saddam that Walder says does not exist, she applied to the FBI on a whim.

Her CIA assignment at the time felt like: "a nutty fun-house game".

Tracy was quickly signed up to the Federal Bureau of Investigation where she wowed by cracking a Chinese -husband-and-wife operative team selling off secrets to the Chinese government job.

Tracy's glamorous tasks included sifting through the eccentric LA based couple's trash - where she found a list of top military secrets scrawled in Chinese.

But Tracy says the FBI was still "a boy's club," and, she writes: "I was The Girl".

The spy underwent a series of misogynist humiliations - including being once told her suit was "distracting".

LATEST NEWS Exclusive VILE VIDS 'Pedo filmed himself raping baby while changing diaper’ as pal says she told mom LEFT TO DIE Boy, 14, died of ‘survivable’ cancer ‘after parents ignored growing tumor' Exclusive MAD BRAD Brad Pitt 'twinned with teen in sauna & insulted' during time in Scientology Pictured INSIDE ‘PEDO ISLAND’ New pics show Epstein cavorting with young women on private island SHOPPING SMACKDOWN Women beat grocery worker after being asked if they'd paid for shopping ‘HEARD THEIR SCREAMS’ Scary moment toddler triplets are CRUSHED by falling bedroom cabinet

After 15 months, she quit the FBI.

Tracy adds: "[The FBI] currently, there are a dozen women who have filed a complaint against the[m] with the Equal Employment Commission".

Now Tracy, who works as a history teacher, has swapped her passion for fighting terrorism with the mission of encouraging young women to pursue intelligence roles.

She hopes more women in the industry can help to deconstruct intelligence agencies' culture.

4 She says her looks - not that of your typical operative - meant she faced sexist expectations Credit: Twitter

4 Tracey's new book details her incredible career across the two most coveted intelligence agencies

Do you have a story for The US Sun team?

Email us at exclusive@the-sun.com or call 212 416 4552.