Few issues have aroused such passion on these pages as the quest for Women of the Millennium. We have been bombarded with suggestions, indignant letters and even the odd poem, since it emerged that on Radio 4's Today programme, the top 100 British personalities of the millennium included only six women, none of whom was shortlisted.
Today's editor said he'd hoped for more female nominations; well, we've got them aplenty. Over a thousand votes were cast and 400 names suggested. With the notable exception of Tracey Teresa ('illegitimate daughter of Mother'), these were mainly sensible suggestions - women who have made a significant contribution to the history of this millennium.
So why is it that when the public are asked to nominate 'great' people, they overlook women? Is it because, by virtue of biology, women can never aspire to those categories of courage, vision, statesmanship and genius by which greatness is usually assessed? Is it because they've never had the chance? Or is it because those categories are themselves flawed? Our list certainly supports the idea that, as one history professor wrote: 'Even when women did distinguished things, modern historians have not noticed them.' Marie Curie, eventual runner-up, was absent from Today's list but repeatedly praised by readers as 'inspirational' and 'a pioneer'. Perhaps it's the relevance of the discovery of radioactivity to women's health, in particular the contribution to breast cancer screening and treatment, that keeps her in women's minds. More likely, though, is that women's contribution to science is often overlooked: Rosalind Franklin, another popular nominee, met just such a fate. The crucial work she did that allowed Crick and Watson to discover the DNA double helix was not acknowledged or rewarded.
Yet our list went beyond the obviously overlooked. It also included some wonderfully obscure candidates, women who would never appear in any predictable cultural history of the millennium but who obviously inspire devotion. There were many who were new to me, including Ursley Kempe, 'who was hanged in 1582 for practising midwifery and bearing children without being married'.
It's clear women's page readers are a seriously erudite lot. Hildegard of Bingen, medieval abbess and composer, for instance, was obviously believed by many to be their own private unknown favourite, yet she eventually came eighth. But you also have unaccountable biases, rating the written word above the visual arts. Surely Jeanette Winterson is not more significant than contemporary artists like Rachel Whiteread or Cornelia Parker? Yet the latter were not even nominated, while sculptress Elizabeth Frink received a sole vote and that was from the Post Office.
Odd bedfellows were created in this list. Mrs Beeton and bell hooks both got two votes, and Germaine Greer and Mother Teresa ran neck and neck until the last minute (Germaine got 13 votes, Mother Teresa 12). But don't be tempted to think this was a random trawl through history to deliver any old female name. In fact, there were clear preoccupations and themes. Many readers made the point that, though women inevitably had been 'excluded from the kind of public, political or cultural activity that has made some men famous', they had nevertheless made a significant contribution. There were numerous nominations for the 'The Unknown Woman/Mother/Daughter' along the lines of the unknown soldier.
Another recurrent theme was the 'great' personality who exceeded the expectations of her gender. Take Elinor of Aquitane, who 'married two kings, gave birth to three kings, was imprisoned, but rose to become Regent', and Aphra Behn, who 'had to write to live, she had courage (she was a spy, unpaid) and great humour!' Indeed, most nominations were for women who were in some way transgressive. Either they were pioneers like Tamara Talbot Rice, 'the Byzantine historian and first woman in the 1920s to go to Oxford unchaperoned', or their behaviour and life transgressed expectations for women. Take Mary Robinson, first woman president of Ireland, who 'brought the status of women out from Ireland's dark ages', or Diane Torr, 'drag king ambassador to the world'.
If this contest had been judged on which figures aroused the most devotion, it was undoubtedly the feminist icons. 'I never fail to utter a prayer of thanks to them every time I cast my hard-earned vote,' wrote one of the many readers who nominated the Pankhursts. Mary Wollstonecraft, in particular, seems to fulfil all the requirements of a feminist heroine, not only as founder of the modern feminist movement but also as a woman with a suitably florid life.
Marie Stopes - repeatedly praised for fighting the establishment to disseminate ideas that 'freed women from the drudgery of unwanted pregnancies' - was perhaps surprising as overall winner. By no stretch of the imagination could you call her 'great' using the usual criteria. But then this poll demonstrated women's ambivalence towards those conventional masculine attributes of greatness. Margaret Thatcher only got as many votes as the composer Dame Ethel Smythe, Catherine the Great didn't even reach the shortlist and Elizabeth I came only fifth.
Sometimes this eschewing of greatness tipped into the frankly bizarre - delightful though they may be, Dolly Parton and Catherine Cookson are stretching credibility as nominees. But it's clear that what the readers of this page value are women who either represent change for women or who have tried to create it. It takes a feminist-inspired stance to understand that this does not make women lesser mortals. For women, there has been a different agenda; they have had to fight for full recognition as citizens before they can aspire to those other categories.
Perhaps it's significant that among the numerous obscure names put forward, no one nominated Sheila Rowbotham, who arguably had a far more important influence on British feminism than Germaine Greer. And for those who can't remember her contribution, it was a book about the way history overlooks women: it is called Hidden From History.
Additional research by Annie Taylor