Nancy: a picture of modern womanhood

Click here for more Evening Standard columnists

She didn't burst into tears, she didn't lose her temper, she didn't scurry past photographers looking pale and anxious. Nor did she fall back on that time-honoured ploy of politicians, pop stars and TV personalities at the centre of a media storm, briefing anonymous "friends" to speak on her behalf. On the contrary, the behaviour over the past few days of Sven Goran Eriksson's girlfriend, Nancy Dell'Olio, has been a lesson in how to survive a personal crisis under intense public scrutiny and offered fascinating insights into what it means to be a modern woman.

The Italian lawyer has emerged with her dignity intact, in spite of being one of the central characters in a story that has dominated the front pages of British newspapers for a week. Not many women could remain so unruffled in the face of all those sporting metaphors about team selection and scoring, yet she has also resisted the temptation to get into a public row with Ulrika Jonsson. Feminism has gone through many incarnations since the 1970s, but one thing it has always rightly abhorred is the temptation to turn triangular relationships of this sort into an undignified cat-fight.

Until last week, few people could have named Eriksson's girlfriend, and there is little evidence that she has ever sought publicity. Jonsson is regarded as media-savvy and might be expected to know exactly how to handle the feeding frenzy that erupted when her relationship with the England coach was revealed in a tabloid newspaper. Yet by Wednesday of this week, as a smiling Dell'Olio went to Highbury with Eriksson to watch Arsenal play at home to West Ham, Jonsson was trying to retrieve what had turned into an extremely awkward situation.

After days in which her nanny and even her nanny ' s boyfriend had offered increasingly prurient accounts of the relationship, Jonsson issued a rather unconvincing statement about having a job to do "both as a mother and as a professional", and wanting to be left to get on with her life without further speculation. The remark was unwise, for the clear impression was that Jonsson, by allowing her "friends" to talk to journalists, had done quite a lot to fuel the speculation.

There is not much public sympathy these days for people who expose their private lives to the Press, especially if they do it through intermediaries, and that is only one of the striking contrasts between the two women in this affair. This is nothing to do with hair colour, the great blonde versus brunette contest, but what it means to be a modern woman.

The days of "victim" feminism, when women were encouraged to seek public sympathy by baring their souls in public, are over. Dell'Olio radiates self-confidence, and is a smart political operator who has braved the crisis out with spectacular resolve. Although she is frequently described as "sharing Eriksson's £3 million home", she is actually an international property lawyer with a successful career of her own.

This may not quite qualify her as a feminist icon, but neither does she fit the stereotype of a footballer's wife or girlfriend. She advises Eriksson on the business side of his career and is said to be responsible for some astute decisions, such as signing up with IMG, the agency that manages celebrities and finds them lucrative sponsorship deals.

Dell'Olio grew up in a thirdfloor flat in Italy's poor South, a long way from the glitzy power centres of Rome and Milan, but she was ambitious and clear-sighted from an early age. "She was a girl who knew she wanted to get out. So she played all the aces she had," says a childhood friend. Ippolito Ventura, a former classmate, agrees: "She was a fish out of water here. She was a girl who desperately needed to be something just a little bit more."

Dell'Olio got a law degree in Rome, worked her way up to a job organising multi-millionpound property deals around the world and even considered going into politics. Her biography is not so much rags-to-riches as the story of a self-made woman, an example to every girl with a poor background and burning ambition. Even her age - she is in her early forties - has worked in her favour; at a time when older women are relentlessly scrutinised and their faults picked apart, Dell'Olio is defiantly beautiful and never less than stylish.

Unfortunately for Jonsson, she is someone whose actual job is rather difficult to describe. Jonsson falls into that category of " personalities" who get into Hello! magazine, appear on the box and are known mostly for nice looks and a pleasant manner. This is certainly not the case with Dell'Olio, stylish though she undoubtedly is. "Her looks certainly helped,? Ippolito Ventura has observed, recalling her schooldays, but that is the point: they helped rather than being the chief selling point of her career.

What she has demonstrated in the past week is a degree of self-possession that other women will envy and perhaps hope to emulate. Dell'Olio is no Princess Diana, tearfully describing how badly men have behaved to her. By appearing in public with Eriksson as though nothing untoward has happened, a carefully crafted image of normality appears to have become reality. Faced with a tabloid Press that is bullying and sentimental by turns, she has kept her head. She has also proved that a thoroughly modern woman can successfully protect her privacy.