The great debate rages across the UK.

Is it good or bad for female students to take part in beauty contests?

The Guardian with a naughty little title (Betraying the student body – phwoar!) agonises:

In 2006 Loughborough University student union hosted the FHM "High Street Honeys Tour", where female students were "spotted" to appear in shoots for the men’s magazine. Loughborough has also held a "Playboy mansion party" with performances from pole dancers. York University has a pole dancing club, and other universities, including Warwick and Bath, have sold calendars of female students posing in their underwear.

All of this may be indicative of a new sexism in student life.

But many women are fighting back. Katie Curtis, the National Union of Students’ women’s officer, says that "it is unacceptable for events which objectify women to take place in our educational institutions. Universities should be about expanding people’s minds, not judging them on their appearance."

Ruby Buckley, women’s officer at LSE, and part of the group that has been protesting against these events, agrees … "This isn’t fulfilling, to be ogled at and judged and it’s such a shame that these are educated women, who could be the future leaders of the world, who are not standing up and questioning what they are doing."

For us men it’s all so confusing.

It’s one thing women growing up strong and independent-minded.

But to this extent?