Powerful women, whether in politics or business, are too confounding without some spin or gloss to soften them up. When Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was profiled in Vogue, audiences were struck not only by the lopsided profile—she is literally posed upside-down in evening wear—but by her insistent insecurity. “It’s not like I had a grand plan where I weighed all the pros and cons of what I wanted to do,” she says of her role as leader of a major corporation. “It just sort of happened.”

Things are “just sort of supposed to happen” to powerful women—good things, determined by fortuity instead of fortitude.

There is no persona that works. Accomplished professional with a Pulitzer Prize is too intimidating, caring mom too weak. Combining both is a mommy wars minefield.

The solution, of course, is to simply accept women as a complex individuals with the right to a private life and evaluate them based on their ideas and professional actions. But that would be breaking a long media tradition.   Dumbing Down Women