How About a Female "Person of the Year"?

Salon.com: The (female) person of the year, by Kate Harding:

Since Time hasn't given a solo woman that honor since 1986, we asked some feminist writers for their picks

In 1999, Time magazine changed its "Man of the Year" title to "Person of the Year," but the linguistic switch had no apparent effect on the magazine's long and rarely interrupted stretch of honoring male persons at year's end. In fact, there hasn't been a stand-alone female honoree since Corazon Aquino was "Man of the Year" in 1986. "The Whistleblowers" of 2002 featured three women; 2003's winner was "The American soldier"; and Melinda Gates was one of 2005's "Good Samaritans," along with her husband and Bono. Oh, and I suppose female persons share in the 2006 "We couldn't really think of anybody this year" award. (They literally covered every woman who saw the cover with that one! What am I complaining about?) But Jeff Bezos, George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and, as of yesterday, Ben Bernanke have all earned solo "Person of the Year" covers since the language was changed -- as have Mikhail Gorbachev and Bill Clinton (twice each), George H.W. Bush, Ted Turner, Pope John Paul II, Newt Gingrich, David Ho, Andy Grove and Kenneth freakin' Starr, since Aquino's win. I am detecting a pattern. 

As Rachael Larimore said at Double X, it's not like there's "a burning need for affirmative action in the meaningless-year-ending-attention-grabbing awards department. I don't care who Time picks. (And, believe me, I'm not sad it wasn't Nancy Pelosi this year.) But if Time is so uncomfortable with itself because its 'Carbon-Based Life Form of the Year' award comes across as sexist, it should, you know, give the honor to a woman once in a while." Time did award Pelosi runner-up status for 2009, but like Larimore, we knew there were even better candidates going ignored. . . .