The controversy over the Union’s decision to offer pole dancing classes seems a bit misplaced. An institution boasting an Ann Summers evening amongst its few events for women ignores the protests of thoughtful feminists; why raise an eyebrow? Many Cambridge women have given up trying to change the Union: they’re saddened that the classes were proposed by female students and continue to be supported by many women of the University. They know, as the Union does, that some of the most intelligent young women are tragically impressionable, and that these pole dancing classes will be well-attended.

The defences are that pole dancing is good exercise and that it can be separated from sexual degradation. However, supporters reiterate that the classes will be strictly female-only. The acknowledgement that pole dancing must be hidden away from the peeping eyes of boys contradicts the Union’s denial that it exploits sweaty amateurs clambering upon poles, sticky with desperation. In a culture where pornographic images of women bombard us from the moment we are old enough to switch on the TV or look up at the top shelf, the condition that men won’t be able to watch the class is redundant.

Supporters are wrong in saying that they can divorce pole dancing classes from the sex industry, because it is being held in a culture that encourages pornographic ideology within women. Supporters wrongly agree with one Women’s Officer that the classes will neither insult nor marginalise those who choose not to attend, despite it being a statement of our university’s complicity with a hypersexualised view of women.

Sadder than their naïveté is their use of the words of modern feminism without considering their implications. David Mitchell’s recent article in the Guardian touched on this misuse, but didn’t go far enough in emphasising its destructive nature. It is excruciating to hear intelligent women talk about their ‘choices’ without thought for the cultural drive behind them, and more so when these women are part of the Women’s Union. Using audacious words of empowerment, one Women’s Officer asks how students who expressed distaste would feel if they were told that something they did was undermining the female population? Disconcerted, surely, as we neither strip for cash nor pole dance. It’s worrying that these women haven’t considered the disturbing motives behind a modern desire to learn a degrading dance over going for a run, blissful in the quiet of intellectual integrity.

By far the saddest thing exposed in the debate is that some women still tell others that if they protest over something that offends their self-worth, they’ll only make life more difficult. We stopped having to smile through injustice in the 1950s, but now we tell others that rebelling against a hypersexualised image of women will marginalise us. The arguments of those supporting the classes reek of a pervasive fear of being excluded.

As it’s impossible to reconcile society’s image of what women should want to be with intellectual self-respect, for many intelligent women, the margin is the only option. But it’s not as depressing as being stuck between a pole and a hard place. Many women are terrified that protesting will be marginalising, despite the tautology. Hopefully, they’ll see that at least the margins are liberated from the consumerist sexism prevalent in society, to which the debate over pole dancing classes is testament.