People like to argue about lists, and this one has enough subjectivity to trigger lots of discussions. The following list appears on Sunshine for Women, "the Internet's place where women and men who love women can find some warmth and light."

Sunshine's pick for Most Influential Man of the Millennium was a humble inventor whose 15th-century invention literally changed the course of world history for all time. His name is Johann Gutenberg (1400?-1468), and he invented the printing press. The women who have made it onto Sunshine's list of "30 of the Most Influential Women of the Millennium" have almost influenced the course of world history as profoundly as Gutenberg, but Gutenberg remains in a class by himself.

Sometimes that influence was, to put it politely, less than positive; sometimes that influence was overwhelmingly positive; sometimes that influence had both positive and negative consequences; sometimes the influence can be viewed as either positive or negative, depending upon world-view of the reader. But all of the women Sunshine picked for this list did, nonetheless, have a profound influence on world history, for good or for bad. They are philosophers, religious leaders, politicians, queens, writers, reformers, physicians, scientists, inventors, lawyers, and just plain gals.

Many illustrious women who deserve a place on this list have not been included. This should not be written off as racism, classism, or ethnocentrism, just lack of knowledge.

The following list of the 30 Most Influential Women of the Millennium is not listed in order of importance.

1. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

(Mary Pierrepont)

(1689 - 1762) Developed smallpox vaccine

2. Queen Isabella of Spain

(1451-1504)

3. Clara Barton

(1821-1912) Founder of the American Red Cross

4. Margaret Askew Fell Fox

(1614 - 1702) Theologian and Religious Leader

5. Martha Griffiths

(1912-2003) Represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives

6. Grace Hopper

(1906 - 1992) Computers

7. Madame du Chatelet

(1706-1749) Scientist

8. Emma Willard

(1787-1870) Educator

9. Josephine Butler

(1828-1906) Reformer

10. Queen Maria Theresa of Austria

(1717 - 1780)

11. Aphra Behn

(1640-1689) Writer

12. Rachel Carson

(1907-1964) Environmentalist

13. Bertha Suttner

(1843-1914) Noble Peace Prize 1905

14. Huda Shaarawi

(1882-1947) Egyptian Nationalist and Feminist

15. Aletta Jacobs

(1854-1929) Physician

16. Laura Bassi

(1711-1778 ) Scientist

17. Mary Wollstonecraft

(1759-1797) Philosopher and Writer

18. Lucretia Mott

(1793-1880) Abolitionist and Reformer

19. Sarah and Angelina Grimke

(1792-1873 and 1805-1879) Abolitionists and Women's Rights Advocates

20. Beate Sirota Gordon

(1923--) Translator, Artist

21. Harriet Beecher Stowe

(1811-1896) Author, Uncle Tom's Cabin

22. Frances Power Cobbe

(1822-1904) Anti-vivisection campaigner and Women's Rights Activist

23. Matilda Joslyn Gage

(1826-1898) Reformer

24. Elizabeth Cady Stanton

(1815-1902) Women's Rights Activist

25. Susan B. Anthony

(1820-1906) Suffragist

26. Ann Castle

(1951-2000) Women in Philanthropy project and website

27. Ida B. Wells

(1862-1931) Civil Rights Activist

28. Sarah Weddington

Lawyer (Roe v. Wade)

29. Pauli Murray, Dorothy Kenyon, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Lawyers, Women's Rights Project at the ACLU

30. Christine de Pizan

(1365-1430) Woman of the Millennium

(Reprinted with permission of Sunshine for Women, www.pinn.net/~sunshine/main.html)

Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?

By L. May Wheeler

Set to a popular parlor tune, this song addressed an argument made against woman's suffrage: that women already had everything they needed--male protection, a sphere of their own --and didn't need to vote as well.

Chorus:

Oh Dear, what can the matter be

Dear dear what can the matter be

Oh dear, what can the matter be

Women are wanting to vote

Verses:

Women have husbands, they are protected

Women have sons by whom they're directed

Women have fathers, they're not neglected

Why are they wanting to vote?

Women have homes, there they should labor

Women have children whom they should favor

Women have time to learn of each neighbor

Why are they wanting to vote?

Women can dress, they love society

Women have cash with all its variety

Women can pray with sweetest piety

Why are they wanting to vote?

Women have reared all the sons of the brave

Women have shared n the burdens they gave

Women have labored this country to save

And that's why we're going to vote

Final Chorus:

Oh Dear, what can the matter be

Dear dear, what can the matter be

Oh dear, what can the matter be

Why should men get every vote?