What's Behind Shrub #1?

When it comes to women who excel at Bitchcraft, Anna Wintour has earned her spot right at the head of the pack. How many people have had an assistant write not just a thinly veiled novel, but a raging bestseller about her boss’s over-the-top evil deeds? (Lauren Weisberger’s “The Devil Wears Prada”). When it comes to dealing with minions, and for the Editor-in-Chief of Vogue almost everyone qualifies as a minion, Anna does demanding and difficult like Lance does the Tour de France.

For example: Check out this story in Gawker about Miz Wintour’s “lunch” date at Balthazar in New York’s Soho earlier this week. (Lunch in quotes because I don’t think this woman exists on anything but Red Bull and ground glass). Anna insisted on a private room. Balthazar insisted there were no private rooms to be had. Anna insisted again. So, the always eager to bow and scrape to celebs restaurant did the next best thing. They built a hedge around her table. Yes, you read that right. They built a hedge right there in the restaurant for Anna and company to hide and hold court behind. Keep in mind that Balthazar is in the concrete heart of New York City. Gardening only happens here under the most extreme circumstances.

Now, one could ask why Anna couldn’t just order in and enjoy plenty of privacy in her own office, even her own floor, at Conde Nast. But of course the point wasn’t not to be seen, but to be seen not being seen. The point was to be demanding and difficult. The point was to be a bitch.

Sure Anna is a special case. But she’s a damn powerful woman and there are few enough of those that we can’t simply write any of them off as an exception to the overarching sisterhood rule. When people assure you that women who rise to the top would never abuse power the way men do, all you have to do is point a big fat finger at scrawny Ms. Wintour and say:

“Look at her.”

Presuming, of course, there are no hedges in the room at the time.