Successful visual storytelling begins with access. My writing colleagues also want access to the primary players, of course, but they can and do report great stories without it, by interviewing other sources. Without access, I’ve got nothing. Establishing that ability to get close requires time, trust, consistency and relationship-building. In making a pitch to get access, I always explain that I am trying to create a full portrait over time of the candidate and to tell a complete story of a quest full of ambition, determination and exhaustion. I’ve been covering women striving for political power in America’s boys’ club on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for decades, and I offered that body of work as my word in building a relationship with Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff over the past two years.

AD

AD

I have witnessed women held to higher standards of performance and behavior. Regardless of party, they are required to do their jobs twice as well as male politicians. Their comportment needs to be motherly but not nagging, inspiring but not too emotional. Their physical appearance needs to be perfect. And their skin? Oh, glowing — and as thick as rhino hide (as Eleanor Roosevelt would say).