It's December, so that can only mean one thing in the sporting world: it's time for SPOTY!

Yes, the BBC has announced its shortlist for the Sports Personality of the Year Award, that rather awkward concept which pits athletes from minority sports against global names, and provokes an annual argument over whether we're voting for their personality or their achievements.

This year they've expanded the shortlist from 10 to 12 people, but from a women's perspective, there's a depressing move backwards. Last year four of the 10 nominees were female and one (Kelly Gallagher, nominated with her guide Charlotte Evans) was a Paralympian.

A year on and only 25 per cent of the extended shortlist are female. Heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, cyclist Lizzie Armitstead and footballer Lucy Bronze are rubbing shoulders alongside athletes Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford, tennis star Andy Murray, F1's Lewis Hamilton, boxer Tyson Fury, Tour de France winner Chris Froome, swimmer Adam Peaty, gymnast Max Whitlock and rugby league player Kevin Sinfield.

Putting aside the gender question for a moment, the first thing which struck me was the repetitive nature of the nominees. Peaty, Hamilton and Whitlock were all nominated last year and Hamilton won it (he was also second in 2007 and 2008). Murray won SPOTY in 2013 and was third in 2012. Froome and Farah were both nominees alongside Murray in 2013. Ennis-Hill has been in the top three three times before. Ennis, Murray and Farah were all nominees in 2012 and Farah was third in 2011, when Murray appeared again.

The second thing is the shallow nature of the sports represented. Athletics appears again and again on SPOTY. Boxing's also pretty popular; there's been a boxer on the shortlist in five out of the last six years (including this year). Cycling appears a lot. In fact, SPOTY's been running since 1954 and according to Wikipedia the winners have come from just 17 sports. Of those, three sports (eventing, golf and swimming) have had two winners each, six (horse racing, motorcycle racing, rowing, rugby union, showjumping and snooker) have won one each. The others have all had three or more winners.

It strikes me that actually Britain is better at more sports than that, and there's much greater depth in the nominees. The stats point mostly to the depressing fact that SPOTY is basically a popularity contest. Generally, it's the biggest names from the most popular sports who win, regardless of the actual difficulty of their achievements.

Back to gender. Women have traditionally made up a minority of the shortlist. The best year recently was 2012, when, perhaps in a reaction to 2011's all-male shortlist, five of the 12 nominees were female. But the last time a woman won outright was 2006, when Zara Phillips picked up the prize. In my lifetime, a woman has won only six and a half (Jayne Torvill won together with her skating partner Christopher Dean) times, and only 13 women have won in 61 years.

At this point, you really do have to stop and boggle. You can't put together a rugby team from the number of female SPOTY winners. Have there genuinely not been more worthy female nominees, at the very least?

The answer is of course there have. But as usual, they haven't had the profile. Even if they were nominated they'd be unlikely to win. As I write, the good news is that Ennis-Hill is the current narrow favourite to win with 5/4 odds, ahead of Andy Murray on 11/8. But Armitstead (reigning World, Commonwealth and British road race champion and Olympic silver medallist) and Bronze (scorer of the goal which took England's women's football team into the World Cup semis) are rank 100/1 outsiders.

I would be thrilled if Ennis-Hill won the trophy. Coming back after a baby and injury to win a world championship is an awesome achievement and she is a brilliant female sporting role model. She's also been incredibly lucky to get loads of exposure in her career, as the "face" of the London 2012 Olympic Games - a massive boost in a contest where the winner is determined by public vote. This aspect naturally helps the men on the shortlist too, because, as we all know, men's sport is massively over-represented compared to women's.

There's also hope that maybe, just maybe, the England women's football team might repeat the achievement of the women's rugby team and take home the team of the year prize after finishing third in the World Cup. Personally I'd be leaping up and down if by some miracle someone decided that Helen Glover and Heather Stanning's record of being unbeaten in the women's pairs since 2011 might be worthy of recognition outside the world of rowing, but the chances are small to incredibly unlikely. One can always hope.

SPOTY is screened on 20 December and I plan to watch it and blog about it, and spot how many women actually get screen time that night. In the mean time, I'd love to hear of more suggestions for women who should have been nominated and weren't.