With all this talk about the money markets being shaky, I've just read an article about women and money.

Yes, we expect men to take care of us. Time to grow up, girls and fill our own piggy bank, it seems.

Married women let their husbands do the financial thinking for them and 'Cinderella Singletons' don't think much further than their next pair of shoes, either. (I'm not being nasty, it's based on a survey).

Seventy per cent of women will end up providing for themselves. Only forty seven per cent of women are saving enough for retirement, compared to fifty nine per cent of men.

Women are not lessresponsible.Manytake part-time workto fit in with their children'sschool time-tables and holidays.These jobs tend to be less well paid than jobs carrying good pensions.

Part-time work means not only a smaller cheque butless to save as well as spend. In times of cut-backs, the part-timers are the first to face redundancy.

Manywomen with children maynotbe able to save until the children are independent. Perhaps then they should work full-time put all their earnings into some form of investment.

I've been writing about the fisherwomen of Llangwm for a book I'm working on. Llangwm is a small village eight miles away from Haverfordwest. These women were the feminists of their day, the men being knownby the wife's name.

On market day, the women sold mussels, herring, shrimp and oysters and other sea-foods outside St Mary's Church, Haverfordwest.

After the day's trading, they stopped fora jug of porter and a pipe of 'baccy in 'The Lamb' in Dew Street, before setting off for home. Idon't think they'd allow the men to sort their pensions out, somehow.