How the silent doll at Tony Blair's side emerged as the acceptable face of modern feminism

There is one woman in Britain whom everybody loves right now, whether they choose to call her Mrs Blair or Cherie Booth. And that's what is intriguing about her public persona: she is both.

I prefer Cherie Booth. Cherie Booth is the clever lawyer, the woman who is clearly in love with her husband and children but who never gave up her own ambitions, the woman who is about to set up her own chambers specialising in human rights, the woman who speaks articulately and informatively about children's and women's rights at legal conferences, the woman who said years ago that she wanted to be a judge and who saw no reason to give up that dream when her husband became premier. She is also the woman who has now superbly put the Prime Minister on the spot over paternity leave.

When Cherie Booth told fellow lawyers at King's College, London, that she expected her husband to follow the lead of the prime minister of Finland, Paavo Lipponen, who has twice taken paternity leave, she broke her self-imposed rule never to comment on her husband's behaviour. "I, for one, am promoting the widespread adoption of his fine example," she told them smartly.

In breaking her silence in this way, Cherie Booth has consolidated her position as the acceptable face of modern feminism. Her intervention could not have come at a better time politically. Feminists in Parliament, unions, pressure groups and the media are currently making a concerted effort to try to get the Government to act on its rhetoric by supporting family life through paid parental leave and rights for parents to work part-time. Cherie has spoken up in favour of these reforms.

When Tony Blair bows to Cherie's persuasion on paternity leave, as he certainly will, a signal will have been sent from the top to add to pressure building up from below. The need for men to recognise their domestic duties will have been clearly demonstrated. Who knows what legal reforms will result, and where it will all end? Perhaps generations to come will look back on the 21st century as the age when men at last learnt to find fulfilment at home as well as at work.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of this potential revolution in attitudes and rights. As Cherie Booth said earlier this week, "It is time that men started to challenge the assumption that the nurturing of children has nothing to do with them. Our children need their male role models as well as their female ones." No one has ever been better placed to yoke their personal struggle to get their partner to do his bit with the political struggle to enshrine such duties in law. And Cherie Booth has risen to this opportunity with panache.

But although Cherie Booth is proving so useful to the feminist cause, there is absolutely nothing revolutionary about her image. This is the way of modern feminism; sometimes it works from the fringes towards the centre, and sometimes it works from the centre outwards. Cherie is certainly in the middle of the road, as far from the erstwhile image of the feminist as the separatist radical as it is possible to get. For when it suits her, Cherie Booth is determinedly Mrs Blair.

The Mrs Blair persona is one that I have often found maddening. This side of her is the one that has kept her so silent, for so many years, never giving an interview, never giving her opinions on government policy, accompanying Tony Blair like a silent doll to state events where she is merely a decorative accessory, paying out thousands of pounds so that her hairdresser can accompany her across the world.

You can see why Cherie Booth took refuge behind Mrs Blair. After all, the wives of left-wing leaders have never had an easy time from the press. Glenys Kinnock, a mild-mannered and sensible woman, became Lady Macbeth in the eyes of the Sun and the Telegraph, because she displayed her eagerness for a Labour victory rather too clearly.

Hillary Clinton's articulacy and political zeal made her an electoral liability until Bill's philandering turned her into a victim figure. If there had been any chink in Cherie's armour, any way in which the tabloids and the Opposition could have got at her, they would have done the same with her. For years, they tried to find something to beat her with; they criticised her hair, her figure, the cases she took on in court, the fact that she didn't curtsey to the Queen when she met her, the dowdiness of her clothes and then, once she smartened up in deference to their criticisms, the excessive money she spent on her clothes. But throughout all the attacks Cherie remained impressively good-humoured and calm, and the mud never had a chance to stick.

The turning point came when Cherie became pregnant. At that point a wave of sentimentality drove out the carping, and the right-wing media softened, since she had so perfectly proved that she was a devoted wife and mother as well as an independent working woman.

This softened attitude in the right-wing press often results in mere sentimental twaddle. Look, for instance, at the leader published by The Spectator this week, which is devoted to expressing admiration of "Cherie the housewife superstar". Much of the contents of the article will set your teeth on edge. The Spectator is so determined to show that it has not been infected by political correctness that it proffers the fact that her children are "clean and tidy" and that "she gazes at her husband with extraordinary reverence" as reasons to love Cherie.

But it is intriguing that the editor of The Spectator (who is also, take note, married to a woman who is a working lawyer as well as the mother of four children) displays his admiration for Cherie Blair's ability to combine work and family life: "She is a powerhouse, a model of what British women can achieve in the new millennium, while not abandoning motherhood."

The Daily Mail, which decided to take Cherie to its heart as soon as the announcement of the pregnancy took place, has even begun to take on board her campaign for equal rights as well as her image as a "housewife superstar". Last week it devoted a front page to her speech on the "intolerable burden" that women carry by having to balance work and home and her call for enhanced rights for working parents. At no other time, with no other spokesperson, would the Mail have written so understandingly of the fight for equality.

The journalists even seemed keen to range themselves with her against traditional working practices. "In her speech Mrs Blair quoted from a Daily Mail article last year examining how family life is damaged by the long hours executives work," they wrote proudly.

It is impressive to see how Cherie has managed to shift the attention from herself since she became pregnant to the wider struggle for equality. Equally impressive is the way she has managed to shift interest in these famous, powerful parents squarely on to her husband. Interestingly, the big question of the day is not how much time off Cherie will take, or what Cherie will do about a nanny, or where Cherie will have her baby. No, it's all about Tony.

Everyone is watching now, to see whether the Prime Minister will prove that he can be a good father as well as a good politician. And that in itself is a great advance. Well done, Cherie Booth.