Kylie Minogue is not, I acknowledge, Everywoman. Everywoman does not regularly sport exotically draped jumpsuits or find her outfits being displayed at an internationally renowned museum and art gallery.

But since the Australian pop singer's diagnosis with breast cancer in 2005, Minogue has inadvertently come to encapsulate the dilemmas of modern middle-class womanhood. Her split from the French actor Olivier Martinez, announced at the weekend, simply compounds that status.

The 38-year-old singer-songwriter-actress is reportedly distraught at the idea that she may not now have children of her own, and is considering the "daunting" possibility of adoption or surrogacy without a long-term partner.