DELUSIONS that we are living in a post-feminist age were sharply brought into focus this week as two of our national institutions put women firmly in their place.

First we had the Daily Mail’s “Legs-it” front page, featuring a photograph of Prime Minister Theresa May and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon following pre-Brexit discussions in Glasgow.

The women were meeting to discuss the most pressing issue of the day and its consequences for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

There was much for the media to focus on – and to bring to the attention of the public at large, not least whether the Scots will get a second referendum which could lead to the break up of the UK at the same time Britain makes a break from the continent.

But the Mail took a different angle. Beside a photo showing the two women sitting next to each other, the headline screamed: “Never Mind Brexit – Who Won Legs-it!”

I know the Brexit-loving Mail wants to take Britain back to the 1970s (before the country became enslaved by the European Project) but surely we don’t have to return to the depressing sexism of that age too?

Newspaper Industry regulator the Independent Press Standards Organisation received at least 300 complaints about the front page, but thousands more would have had a heart-sinking reaction to the Mail’s coverage.

The paper’s response was to tell critics to “get a life”, while author Sarah Vine (wife of Michael Gove) accused them of having a “sense of humour failure”.

Women are massively underrepresented in politics and yet the reverse is true at the very top of the field. Women hold leadership posts in the Tory party (both nationally and in Scotland), the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, and the Scottish Labour Party too.

That is something to celebrate. It is progress. But it won’t really feel like that if our newspapers present these politicians as if they were competing in a beauty pageant (another relic of the 1970s).

Comments by a judge that a victim of domestic violence was “not a vulnerable person” because she was intelligent and had a network of friends were another shocking example of turning back time.

Judge Richard Mansell QC’s words sound like they belong to a distant past: a time before women burnt their bras or demanded equal pay (something they are still fighting for today, don’t forget); a time when people used to drink and drive and police turned a blind eye when a man beat up his wife.

But it’s 2017, not 1971. Much progress has been made in educating the police and the public about domestic violence.

Victims can access help and support from charities such as IDAS in North Yorkshire and police give the crime the attention it deserves. Speak to anyone involved in domestic abuse and they will tell you the same thing: it is a crime that knows no social barriers. Women of all ages, religions, backgrounds, professions and social class can be victims.

Being psychologically, emotionally, sexually or physically abused by your partner is a terrifying experience, and can be a terribly isolating one.

Figures suggest two women in the UK each week lose their lives to domestic violence and one in four will suffer abuse in their lifetimes.

It takes great courage for women to escape from a life of abuse. Judge Mansell has just made that even more difficult.