I grew up in the 50s, when corporal punishment was an accepted fact of life for English schoolchildren. We all tried to avoid it, of course. But nobody thought it unnatural that boys and girls should be regularly beaten on their buttocks by parents and teachers of both sexes.
In fact, while nearly all the teachers in the first seven grades were female, the school always seemed to be headed by a man. I suppose the age of equal opportunities still lay in the future. I sometimes think that schoolmistresses saw the belabouring of a boyish backside as a way of getting their own back for the sexual discrimination they suffered.