In his 1905 painting The Three Ages of a Woman, Gustav Klimt neatly segments female existence into distinct phases: child, mother and crone. In our post post-feminist society, women are harder to categorise - thank heavens.

More and more women are breaking down artificial age barriers, refusing to toe the line of other people's expectations or get with the programme for how their life stages are 'supposed' to unfold. They are living their lives their way. Handbag spoke to three women who confound expectations of their ages.

Powerful in her 20s
Kate Jones is one the most successful fund managers of her generation. The 25-year-old who was last year voted Young Businesswoman of the Year is part of a team that manages some £7bn of pension funds at M&G, the Prudential's UK and European investment firm.

'I've never had anyone question my abilities because of my age, but I do feel that I have more to prove. People in their 30s or 40s are assumed to have [a greater] level of knowledge and expertise and I feel I need to go that extra step further than colleagues who are maybe five or ten years older,' she comments.

However, she also points out that this belief has helped to drive her success. Jones is a grown up outside the office too. She's into yoga and reiki in her spare time and cringes at the thought of a night clubbing. 'I was out with friends the other night and we went past a club with all these girls in shorts skirts queuing outside and I just thought 'thank god that's not me'. I did that five years ago,' she says. 'I'd much rather sit and talk with my mates and have lots of wine instead.'

Long term, Jones says she would love to run a bar in Spain. In the short term she's after even more respect and even more responsibility in the world of fund management.

Ditching the rat race in her 30s
Natasha Harvey surprised all but her closest circle of friends when she jacked in a successful career in IT to take a year off travelling at the age of 31.

'People said things like 'what at your age?' and 'why now?' and made gloomy noises about how hard I'd find it to pick up where I left off,' she recalls. 'People seemed to think that I should be concentrating on continuing to build my career, but I was bored and I wanted to make changes. My attitude was: if I don't do this now, when am I going to do it? I'm young, I could afford it and I wanted to do it, so I went and did it.'

Harvey left the UK last year soon after attaining an MBA, for which she had studied part time. 'I wanted some time to think about what I wanted to do next. I've got more options now and I wanted to think about how I'm going to use [the qualification]. Also I just wanted to have some fun and some time off after two years of solid studying,' she says.

Harvey has six months of her round the world jaunt left and the wanderlust is still strong in her. Does she ever have doubts about her decision? 'Not for a minute,' she answers.

Working model and mum in her 40s
Model and actress Anna Ashfield is 42 and not prepared to be manipulated by other people's perceptions of her and what she should or should not be doing.

'A lot of people try to put you into a pigeonhole and place these restrictions on what you are supposed to be. I don't feel any different now than when I was in my 20s. I probably have a more mature outlook and approach things with a more mature attitude, but I've still got lots of ideas and there are lots of things I haven't done yet,' she comments.

Ashfield says that she has always had a strong idea of what she wants and always been very career-minded. 'I live in a little estate in the countryside where none of the other mothers work. I've had comments like 'are you doing a proper job as a mother?' and on the odd occasion when I needed someone to help out 'I suppose I can take your child to whatever so that you can go out working'. It made me even more determined to sort things out so that I didn't have to rely on other people,' she says.

'My children respect me for what I'm doing and I think it makes me more interesting company for them. I'd get very bored just talking about tablecloths or worrying about the small things in life. I work around my children and I've just turned down a job because I was spending too much time away.' Ashfield works as a fashion model and has had small parts in TV shows, such as East Enders, Coronation Street and Casualty.