Salli Richardson-Whitfield has made Emmy history after becoming the first woman to receive two nominations for directing a drama series in the same year. She is nominated for episodes of HBO’s “Task” and “The Gilded Age”, a milestone that follows her becoming the first Black woman nominated in the category last year and highlights the continued lack of representation among television directors.

Richardson-Whitfield will compete at next month’s Primetime Emmy Awards for the penultimate episode of crime drama “Task” and the third-season finale of “The Gilded Age”; she is also an executive producer on both series. She began directing on Syfy’s “Eureka” in 2011, and said she feels pressure to excel because women and Black women can still be unfairly judged as a group when opportunities behind the camera remain limited.