John Mullan, professor of English at University College, London

Who could not be cheered at the thought of Jane Austen's image on the new £10 note? She would surely have found it a thoroughly amusing honour, given her own remorseless attention to the power of money in people's lives. Think of Mr John Dashwood, mentally fingering his banknotes as he talks, or Mr Collins, solemnly telling Elizabeth Bennet just how little she is worth, even as he is proposing to her. On money, as on much else, she is the most astringent as well as the funniest of our writers. So she is no sentimental choice.

Of course it matters that one of the nation's representatives on its currency is a woman, and all the better that it be a woman who came out of provincial nowhere to make herself immortal by talent alone. She took a type of writing – the novel – that was looked down on as trivial stuff for female readers, and she made it into the highest art. And yet what she wrote remains completely accessible, and can delight an imaginative 13-year-old as much as any ingenious critic. In an age of literary cliques and networks, she contrived her masterpieces without the advice or patronage of any other authors, with only her belief in her own brilliance to sustain her. She is a kind of heroine as well as a genius. I can't think why you would not be delighted at the idea of her presiding over our everyday transactions.

Fleet Street Fox, media blogger, aka Susie Boniface

Jane Austen is a perfectly good writer, and I enjoy reading about perky young girls and smouldering, tightly breeched heroes as much as anyone. But we differ on your use of the word "genius", which is over-egging it, and the fact that her addition to our banknotes causes you great delight and throws me into despair. I fail to see how anyone could think she is the best and sole representative of 2,000 years of British womanhood. George Eliot's books provoked more social change than Jane's; Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist philosophy is more relevant to modern society; Boudica sends a better message to men and women alike about how it is possible to be wife, mother and successful general.

There are many banknote candidates who did more to change the world than Jane. Rosalind Franklin did the legwork to discover the nature of DNA, which Crick and Watson barely bothered to mention, and Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was banned from training as a doctor in Britain so she learned in France and co-founded our first women's hospital. Tilly Shilling was an engineer who located and fixed a carburettor problem which caused Spitfire engines to stall in mid-air combat, and in so doing quite possibly turned the tide of the second world war. Any of these women would be an excellent addition to our banknotes and, unlike Jane, are largely unknown. Their achievements knock spots off Austen and most of the men currently on our banknotes too.

JM: Comparisons are odorous, as Dogberry says, so I'm not going to measure the blessed Jane against each one of your competitors. Most of them are admirable (though I'm not sure about Boudica – while undoubtedly formidable and female, didn't she encourage quite a bit of gratuitous slaughter in her wake?). If "changing the world" is your criterion, maybe a novelist is going to be hard put to make the grade. You vaunt George Eliot – whom I'd love to see on a future banknote – but I'm not sure that even she managed this. How did Middlemarch change the world more than Persuasion?

Is it possible to measure the achievements of a writer against those of a scientist? You do so by presuming that the scientist must be more important. Silly Jane, she just wrote stories about people wondering who to marry. And it's hard to place her in a feminist top 10 because she doesn't grind axes or promote causes. Her books are great exactly because their author is hidden in them. She made fictions as subtle and complex and hilarious as life can ever be, and "genius" seems a fair word for this. Millions of readers across the world have agreed with me.

FSF: I don't dislike Jane. Nor do I suggest she's not worth a place on a banknote; merely that there are many, less recognised women competing for that space. We could squabble over who is the "best" woman for that space all day long, but why does there have to be just one?

I would be delighted to see Jane on a banknote if only she weren't the sole representative of my gender. There are seven people on our banknotes and the lone female is to be replaced – possibly but not definitely – with Jane. Only 14% of our money is devoted to the achievements of 52 per cent of the population, and while the Queen is on the other side, it's only by accident of birth, and she'll be replaced by King Charles soon enough.

It would be far more logical and representative if we had four great women on the notes and three great men, and then perhaps we wouldn't need to spend so much time arguing about why we do or don't approve of or like the female candidates. Have you noticed that no one seems to do that with the chaps?

JM: Your statistics aren't quite right: there are four banknotes in use, only one of which has a woman on it, the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. (The £50 with the peculiarly non-famous Sir John Houblon is still around, but going out of circulation.) If Fry is replaced by Churchill on the £5 note, and Darwin by Austen on the £10 note, female representation will stay at one in four.

It sounds as if Austen is winning you over, so let me concede in turn that she should not be a lone woman for too long. With four bank notes, it would be rational to share privileges equally between the sexes. We don't want to confirm Catherine Morland's description of British history in Northanger Abbey: "the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all".

But let's not have anyone who needs special pleading or an explanatory essay. When Adam Smith on the £20 has had his day, we could have George Eliot or Elizabeth I or Emmeline Pankhurst (who would surely cheer you up). But it would take someone top-notch to keep Austen company. She deserves to be on our currency not because of her gender but because of her brilliance.

FSF: You're mistaken in two things: firstly that Austen has won me over, and secondly that there are only four banknotes. There should be, but there are several versions in circulation which means there are currently seven possible places and six of them are occupied by people of far more questionable purpose and achievement than your dear Jane.

Sell Churchill to the survivors of Gallipoli, if you can, and Adam Smith to those who have suffered the brute end of privatisation. Even your suggestion of Emmeline Pankhurst would cause a row, as she was a terrorist in her day. As I said, we can debate the "best" all day long. I'm glad you see my point that one in seven or one in four banknotes is still a shocking representation of half the population, and so I suggest we remove the choosing of banknote beauties from the men in suits at the Bank of England. Their choices prove they haven't a clue, and those chaps certainly don't represent the end user.

This is our money, and our heroes, and to that end I suggest we throw it open to a public vote. Yes, we might end up with Clare Balding or a dancing dog that made Simon Cowell smile but nothing would be so bad as the 19th century version of Barbara Cartland. It's our money, and we should have our say on it.