The Cane and the Double Standard31

The later punishment does indicate though that things weren’t always biased against boys. Sometimes girls got a raw deal. At my Junior school, both boys and girls were subject to a variety of corporal punishments, though being in general rather better behaved (or possibly more aware of how to avoid going that little bit too far) girls were punished rather less often than boys. However, by far the worst punishment I saw was of a girl. It made a big impression on me for a number of reasons, one of the minor ones being that at the start of the incident, I thought I might get whacked as well. The girl who was punished had spoken to me when we weren’t supposed to talk, and some teachers invariably punished both parties in that circumstance on a guilt-by-association basis.