I spent yesterday in Bath at the annual conference of the The West of England & South Wales Women’s History Network. There were many interesting papers. I was rather sad that the one about women in the Mabinogion didn’t happen, but I very much enjoyed the one about women in Pop Art.

You may recall that a couple of years ago I wrote about a BBC documentary on the women of Pop Art. One of the women whose work starred in that show was Pauline Boty. Yesterday I was privileged to hear a talk about Boty by Sue Tate who is probably the world expert on her, or at the very least has written the book.

Boty rose to fame in the 1960s. She was young, blonde, very pretty, intelligent, feminist, and apparently very fond of men. Therein lies a problem, because she worked in Pop Art, a field that is pretty much synonymous with sexual objectification of women. How is an artist like Boty, who thinks that women should be allowed to enjoy sex, to situate herself within a field that is all about men’s sexual exploitation of women? That was basically the subject of Sue’s talk.

Of course in the 1970s feminism tried to solve the problem by retreating from sex. Women were supposed to become sexless, wearing shapeless clothes that disguised bodily shape, cutting their hair short, not wearing make-up or bras, and becoming “political lesbians”. Boty, who sadly died very young of cancer, would have hated that. Lots of other women must have too, because it didn’t last.

After the talk I stuck my hand up and asked Sue for her opinion on Beyoncé. I was pleased to see that I had nailed the topic. The debate around Bey’s work is much the same as that around Boty’s: how is an attractive, sexy woman supposed to be a feminist, if she uses her sexiness in her art?

And of course it isn’t limited to them. Madonna was mentioned briefly, and from my own field I would single out Justina Robson as someone who centers female sexuality in her work and is looked down upon because of it.

I don’t think that it is a debate that is going to go away, if only because which side feminists take tends to depend on how fond they are of sex, and in particular sex with men. I am, of course, obliged to stick my hand up and declare a preference there. However, I don’t think that women can be truly emancipated until they are allowed to have pride in and control over their sexuality.

Oh, and BBC, next time you want to do a documentary about women in Pop Art, get Sue to front it.