The most extraordinary photograph appeared last week in anticipation of this weekend’s Ryder Cup. It was of some of the European participants’ wives in full hair and make-up, squeezed into satin dresses and lolling on a sofa with Jose Maria Olazabal, the assistant European captain. According to one newspaper, “the fashion war of the wives will attract almost as much attention” as the actual tournament. Mindful of this, Nick Faldo, the European captain, asked one of his former wives, Valerie Bercher, “to be lady captain and look after [the other wives]”. So Bercher commissioned Paul Costelloe, the designer, to create a 30-piece £100,000 wardrobe for the “golf girls”.

“We worked on a variety of different items so the girls can mix and match their outfits,” she said.

The photograph – chests out, hair up, veneers glistening – is the result of her endeavours. It features, among others, Anne Haghfeltk, wife of Soren Hansen. Haghfeltk is a doctor in her native Denmark; in the picture she is grinning and has her hand on Olazabal’s upper thigh. Olazabal is lying on the laps of Ebba Karlsson, a former make-up artist and mother of one, and Emma Stenson, Henrik Stenson’s wife, who gave up her own golfing career to support her husband (he told her to “cross your legs for a few days” last year because the baby’s arrival was due to coincide with the Open at Carnoustie; in the event, he missed the golf and was there for the birth).

What on earth is going on? What are these women doing? Did I fall asleep and wake up in 1952? Is this what the role of the modern spouse has boiled down to – fragrant appendage to talented man, doomed to be paraded, cleavage on show, for the glorification of the male ego?

Like everyone else, I was more amused than concerned by the whole wives-and-girlfriends phenomenon, lesson in objectification though it was. At least the girls involved were very young, very newly wealthy, having a laugh and obviously keen to be photographed out shopping, flicking their extensions and showing off their improbable tans. What women wear is entirely up to them, and that includes wearing nothing at all; if their idea of fun is to celebrate their youth and good looks by falling out of nightclubs wearing heels and a 1in skirt, good on them. They’ve got the rest of their lives to shuffle exhaustedly in track pants accessorised with a dollop of baby sick.

But this is a whole different kettle of fish: grown-up wives and girlfriends of golfers believing, for whatever insane reason, that it is a good idea to come across like a shoal of bimbos, even though no one asked them to or expected it of them. Either golf is the most misogynistic sport in the world – which I find unlikely – or these women have gone a bit mad. Why else dress like a Big Brother contestant and feel up people’s legs? Why else reduce themselves to a collective of tits, teeth and hair?

“Harmless fun,” you might say. Well, only kind of. It is surely no accident that the more powerful women become, the more some of their sisters are depicted as glamour-crazed simpletons. Personally, I find this sinister. More sinister still is the idea that this self-bimbo-fication is entirely voluntary and that the best way of supporting your spouse in 2008 is by being silent and photogenic. It’s so messed up and insecure: what it boils down to is men feeling pleased because their wives or girlfriends are considered hot by complete strangers; and their wives or girlfriends feeling that, by being considered hot, they have fulfilled their role to the best of their ability. As for “the fashion war of the wives”: what does that mean? That women can’t wear nice dresses without it being a contest? What are we – five years old, fighting over the Cinderella outfit?

I worry about the rise and rise of the silent wife. They are going to be paraded about at the party conferences this week and next: silent, smiling Sarah Brown, with her razor-sharp mind and her political nous (to say nothing of her PR skills – might be an idea to give them an airing, no?); and silent, smiling Samantha Cameron, who is a bright, funny working woman who has opinions. Why don’t they ever speak? I appreciate that they are not politicians, but they are an integral part of the political process; their husbands and their respective parties are both fully aware that, even mute, the wives embody all sorts of appealing, voter-friendly qualities: steel magnolia, Bod-en woman, whatever. Wouldn’t you love to hear them say something?

Say what you like about Cherie Blair and the times when she went all first lady, but at least she didn’t go all first mouse: she may not have known when to stop but at least she piped up. All we’re going to get over the coming days is more teeth, more hair and shining eyes beaming proud love at the masterful he-spouse. I don’t call that evolved.

The fear of seeming strident increasingly haunts successful women, who in many cases appear to live in abject terror of being seen as screechy or forceful or, God forbid, a tiny bit clever: it’s as though you are allowed to be bright only if you cover that up with a load of fluff. You can call yourself a feminist but only if you have really sexy hair. I’m sorry, but this isn’t a result. Michelle Obama treads a fine and carefully thought-out line, her politics and brainpower constantly checked by her vocal devotion to her family.

If we’re going retro, what’s wrong with leavening the brains and ambition with a bit of old-school “what, little me?” eyelash-batting and judicious flirtation? It works for Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and it’s worked for a lot of clever women in their time. I personally don’t go a bundle on leavening anything so as to make people – that is, men – feel less threatened, but at least the fluttery approach has the merit of producing results. It’s hard to see what is achieved by this new alternative: showing that you don’t know how to dress yourself, don’t have anything to say, are overcome with giggles because there’s a man on the sofa and need a special lady-handler in order to attend a golf tournament. And then, for good measure, getting someone to take a picture to send the message far and wide. That’s not just retro; it’s antediluvian.

The art of plastic

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (Baaps) held its annual conference last week. Every time I go for my Botox, my doctor, who worked with the health department on the 2005 Expert Group Report on the Regulation of Cosmetic Surgery, tells me of yet another instance of some random person who’s been on a day course wielding havoc with his or her needle.

The conference highlighted this. Women, it said, are putting their lives at risk by going to cowboy clinics. Douglas McGeorge, the Baaps president, gave a “lunchtime facelift” as an example. “The idea of a lunch-break facelift is lovely, but it is impossible,” he said, condemning false advertising involving heavy retouching and encouraging unrealistic expectations (clinics don’t have to sign up to a code of practice – it is voluntary).

I wrote about my marvellous Botox some months ago and still get e-mails about it, so I know how fascinated many women are by the idea. To them I say: please don’t even think about having work done by anyone not on the Baaps database. Never go to the places that advertise in the back of magazines. If a clinic offers you a discount if you sign up in the next 24 hours, run away.

A good surgeon is an artist – unlikely to be cheap. Do your homework. And pray the government one day sees fit to regulate this industry before more women start wandering around looking like a Picasso for the sake of a bargain.

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