While Anna Wintour was in Tokyo to promote Tokyo’s Fashion’s Night Out, she addressed some controversy that followed an editorial in Japanese Vogue that featured Japan’s minister of government, Renho, in one of Japan’s parliament buildings. Apparently Renho took flak from lawmakers over the location of the shoot. She told the Wall Street Journal:

When women are in positions of power, and they’re featured in a women’s magazine like Vogue…they tend to be incredibly unfairly criticized. It’s an incredibly old-fashioned approach. Just because you’re in a position of power, and you look good and you enjoy fashion — does that mean you’re an idiot, or that it’s not seemly to be in a woman’s magazine? If a man is in GQ, they don’t get the same kind of criticism.

Our first reaction? Yes, right on Anna! It’s true–why should women be viewed as less serious or powerful or good at their jobs just because they look good doing them?

But then we considered the women in power that Vogue chooses to profile in its pages: Queen Rania of Jordan; First Lady Michelle Obama; controversially, Asma al-Assad, the First Lady of Syria; Sarah Palin. They’re all really pretty.