(Western Mail Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) There are so many mixed messages about what a modern woman should be, it's hard to know how to behave. So, asks Catherine Jones, where are women today? TWENTY FIVE years ago this coming Sunday, 36 women set off on a 120-mile, 10-day walk from Cardiff to Greenham Common. It was the start of protests which would swell to 50,000 women joining hands to surround the nuclear cruise missile base.

Just a bunch of women? The campaign defined an era, one of the most successful protest movements ever, with pictures of the women flashed around the world as they railed against the presence of the US missiles at the RAF base.

To many it would have seemed as though women were set to change the world. They had firmly shed the shackles of 1950s nipped-in waist housewife status and the flicky hairdos of the 1970s.

Increasing numbers were going into further education, they were getting out into the workplace, albeit to discover the glass ceiling. Sisters, hands linked, were doing it for themselves, so where has it got them? Where do women stand today?

Many are in hair salons, according to a new report from the Work Foundation, a leading think tank, which says the job best captures the 'spirit of the times' (alongside celebrities, management consultants and managers).

In among the self congratulation of the likes of very highly-paid celebrity (male) hairdressers such as Nicky Clarke and Daniel Galvin, one university professor, Peter Nolan of Leeds University, believes secondary schools irresponsibly 'channelled' teenage girls into becoming hairdressers.

'There is a very grim reality,' he says. 'It's appalling - girls come out at 16 and think it's a glamour industry, and of course it's not. They think they are all going to be Victoria Beckham ... they think they are going to have a great life but they don't because most hairdressing proprietors are pretty unscrupulous.'

And while the Greenham women stood at the opposite end of the glamour scale, today's girls are causing a surge in female bankruptcies by yearning for the life of a footballer's wife.

According to accountancy firm Wilkins Kennedy, the proportion of female bankruptcies has risen from 32% in 2000 to 44% now and will break the 50% barrier by 2009.

One of the biggest problems is caused by 'wannabe WAGs' who constantly move their debts form one credit card to another with a 0% interest rate, all the while running up fresh bills without adjusting their lifestyle.

Then again, if you can't marry a footballer, marry an internationally-loved rock star and then 'take him to the cleaners' a la Heather Mills who is being painted as a conniving, greedy madam out to get as much of her husband's fortune as possible.

In Indonesia, marriages continue to be arranged between poor women and richer men who have never met. World Vision, an international aid agency, says the practice is 'still common' and won't die out soon.

'It's the tradition and it's hard to go against traditions,' says Gadis Arivia, the executive director of the women's group Jurnal Pereumpuan. 'Parents don't believe in modern practices, particularly when they see divorce rates going up. On the daughter's part if you obey your parents you are supported. The disobedient ones have a much harder life.'

Meanwhile, in the US, new research shows that the richer a woman becomes the more likely she is to divorce her husband - apparently not just because her income has risen but because her success starts to outstrip her husband's.

Researchers believe this may be because the balance of power shifts, making the woman less likely to accept being lumbered with household chores and increasing the risk of quarrels.

Additionally, a woman's greater earning power makes her more confident that it will be financially viable to leave her husband and pay a good divorce lawyer.

Economics professor Randall Kesselring cites 'fragile male egos' reacting negatively to women's raised status. He estimates that for every pounds 10,000 a wife's earnings increase relative to the family's overall income, the chances of marital break-up rise by 1%.

In the same country - which produced the haunting images of JonBenet Ramsey, the murdered child beauty queen back in the news - Indra Nooyi has become one of the most powerful businesswomen after her appointment as chief executive of Pepsico, the New York group that also owns Tropicana Fruit Juice, Quaker Oats and Walkers Crisps (apparently the press in India celebrated as if she had won Wimbledon, Big Brother and X Factor rolled into one).

She is the 11th woman heading a company in the Fortune 500 list of top American companies - add Margaret Whitman, chief executive of eBay, Anne Mulcahy, head of the Xerox office-equipment group, and Brenda Barnes, chief executive of Sara Lee, the food, clothes and healthcare giant.

But American actress Sigourney Weaver - 5ft 11in and often billed as a giantess, says 'the height thing' has affected her entire career, particularly where casting is concerned.

'Producers are short, I'm tall - I'm not the average producer's sexual fantasy. Most people didn't know what to do with me, so I ended up working with Ridley Scott and James Cameron, people who didn't much care for the conventional stuff.'

Meanwhile David Cameron has prepared new measures to parachute women into winnable seats as local party associations in London and the southeast appear particularly reluctant with no women selected for winnable seats.

Where are women today? Cherie Blair, who started from humble beginnings and became a top barrister (as well as wife of the Prime Minister) gets lambasted for her appearance in a bathing costume and makes no secret she is not vying with Katie Price in the glamour stakes, but there you are.

A teenage girl posing in front of Tony Blair wants to be a model. Big Brother winner Pete Bennett says he'll give all his pounds 100,000 prize money to his mother, a professional violinist, who had to work in a fast-food restaurant to make ends meet. Then again we have 17-year-old Peaches Geldof, telling us on her website that her annual salary is pounds 250,000 and higher'. Lesson? Don't learn the violin. Get into the celebrity world - or become a hairdresser.

Copyright 2006 . Western Mail & Echo Ltd

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