Women Rule

The name Anna Wintour immediately calls to mind an image of a woman at once both cool and cold, her face framed by an perfect bob haircut, her eyes inscrutable, hidden behind oversized sunglasses. You imagine the mind behind those glasses — the mind behind VOGUE, the woman whose hard-charging leadership style was the basis for Meryl Streep’s titular character in “The Devil Wears Prada.” But if you’re able to escape the gravitational pull of that image, you’ll find something else: A model of how women can lead, and a cautionary tale of the double-standards they face once they do. “They’re caricatures, they’re stereotypes,” said Amy Astley in an interview for POLITICO’s Women Rule podcast. “This is a businessperson successfully running a business. It’s not easy. And some of those things that were heaped upon her, you don’t see it heaped upon men as much.” Astley is the editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest and a longtime Wintour protege who has led AD through something of a renaissance — dramatically expan