IT’S not been a good couple of weeks for women’s rights.

A cricketer found guilty of making his wife drink bleach, and beating her with a bat, was allowed to walk free with a suspended sentence and a restraining order after claiming he was about to sign a contract with Leicestershire Cricket Club - a claim which turned out to be false.

The judge made a strange ruling in the case of 34-year-old Mustafa Bashir, judging that his wife Fakhara Karim was “not vulnerable” because she has friends and a university education.

Mercifully, the sentence is to be reviewed this Friday, after the judge possibly realised the sentence had sent out the wrong message – and after the cricket untruth emerged (although why this made any difference to his sentence is beyond me).

Then came the notorious Daily Mail’s “Legs-it” front page, which undermined entirely the key meeting between the UK Prime Minister and Scottish First Minister by choosing to focus on their stockinged legs, prompting former Labour leader Ed Miliband to tweet: “The 1950s just called and asked for their headline back”.

Inside the Mail’s Sarah Vine compounded the insult by saying Sturgeon’s legs were: “altogether more flirty, tantalisingly crossed … a direct attempt at seduction”.

And it emerged this week that Sunderland manager David Moyes had told a sports reporter, following a gruelling interview: “Just getting a wee bit naughty at the end, so just watch yourself.

“You still might get a slap even though you’re a woman... careful the next time you come in.”

It might have been, and undoubtedly was, a light-hearted joke. But he then said: “I’ve apologised to the girl,” which actually spoke volumes about his whole attitude towards women. She’s not a child. She’s a professional woman.

And if it is typically the kind of joke he makes towards reporters, regardless of their sex, why haven’t any male sports reporters come forward to defend him?

Moyes, believe it or not, is a role model, as a high-profile Premiership football boss. Millions of people read the Daily Mail. Those sitting at home, like our aspiring cricketer, see this kind of behaviour and it justifies their world-view, that women are there primarily to serve the needs of men. It may seem like a huge jump from seeing a Premiership boss jokingly threaten to slap a woman, to making your wife drink bleach, but for those with this kind of disordered thinking, it justifies their behaviour. Their belief that women are subordinate, that they are sexual objects despite their status as world leaders, or university-educated women with friends, god forbid.

Men like this – and thankfully, they are becoming a minority – don’t need much encouragement to rationalise how they feel about women. Rape and domestic abuse charities and women’s groups have been trying to point out that violence against women is cemented in the misogyny of society all around us, from child’s toys to page three.

It is the responsibility of the whole of society to change this. Women once burned their bras for emancipation.

Perhaps it’s time we started burning the Daily Mail.