TEEN singer Billie Piper's engagement to multi-millionaire DJ Chris Evans caused such a sensation, not just because of their 17-year-age difference - she is 18 while he is 35 - or because she may finally have tamed the untameable Virgin Radio boss, but because it was she who asked for his hand in marriage.

But is this a unique expression of girl-power on Billie's part, or are women increasingly bending down on one knee to ask the big question?

Joanne Short felt New Year's Eve was the perfect occasion to ask boyfriend Ralph Cuthbertson to tie the knot.

Fireworks exploded in myriad colours in the night sky and the crowd in a neighbour's front garden were counting down to a new millennium on December 31, 2000, when she got down on one knee and popped the question.

"He was standing watching me with a bottle of beer in one hand. He was surprised and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was asking him to marry me and he said yes straight away," says Joanne, 23, from Bedlington, Northumberland.

She knew Ralph, 28, was planning to propose to her on the following Valentine's Day, but she says she couldn't wait that long.

"I'd never particularly wished for a traditional proposal over dinner with him on one knee with a ring in his hand," she says.

"I thought this would be a little different and I was fairly confident he'd say yes."

She says she had forewarned her father a few hours previously that she was going to ask Ralph because of the coming Leap Year when, traditionally, women can ask for a man's hand.

"I don't think my dad believed that I would ask and, after we told people, they thought I'd asked him because I was drunk, but I wasn't and I really meant it. No one expected us to carry out wedding plans after my proposal so they were surprised when we did!"

Typist Joanne and driver Ralph, 27, who both work for Gregg's Bakers in Newcastle, met in the April before and both knew they'd met their match.

"Ralph was just perfect right from the start. He would notice everything about me and give me compliments. I was even thinking of asking him out but he beat me to it," she says. She feels that, in a climate of increasing gender equality, women shouldn't think twice before popping the question.

"The reaction of some people when I tell them I proposed is unbelievable. They're gobsmacked. But why should women wait around for the man to do the asking? If I have any daughters, I'd certainly encourage them to do what I did."

Meanwhile, Kevin Overbury, spokesman for Relate relationship counselling organisation in Newcastle, says he is heartened by Billie Piper's proposal. He feels it is a marker for the equal state of gender relations and, although it may seem a feisty gesture on her part, she probably didn't mean it to be so.

"I suspect she does not think it was a feisty thing to do, it was just a normal thing to do for her which is a great sign of a generation of young women who feel they can and should do things like that."

He adds that "who proposes" is less important than it used to be and is in no way a sign of a potential "henpecked" husband.