Self Appointments/Females and Camping

I have not yet responded to any messages on the Scouts-L, but finally
after days of reading of the females on camp outs I was prompted to
respond. First, most female who are in Scouts understand that this is a
boys program, therefore if she is offended by anything done or said by
male boys, she is in the wrong organization. Second, when I read the
first message about this situation, the biggest part of this message was
the self appointment by the female in question. Clearly, she first
needs to be trained because no where in BSA does self appointment show
up in policy. Lastly, in reading the messages, I noticed allot of men
responding for females in Scouting, but very few females themselves.
Guess what? I am one of the females in Scouting. When I joined, it was
because that was the only way to keep the Pack my son was in active. I
am now working my ticket, and having a great time. However, I put my
son in Scouts because he needed male bonding that as a mom I was unable
to give. I still believe that. I can't teach him to be a man since
after all I am not one. But I do believe females play an important role
in teaching the boys compassion, understanding and caring. As far as
camping, most of the boys in our town see me as one of the boys. I
don't mind talking about the guts of a frog, or the icky stuff we saw in
the woods. If there are any females in Scouts who do mind being one of
the guys I feel they should look to help out the Girl Scouts instead.
This is after all a boys program. I have camped with my sons Pack and
Troop. I have even made sure the boys of a Troop got to camp by being
there with another female when all the males of our Troop were suddenly
too busy to be there for the boys. Amazingly on that weekend what ever
was so important suddenly wasn't because these too busy men were all out
at the campsite. So I have also seen the discrimination of females too.
Bottom line of the original message is deal with one problem at a time.
She can't appoint herself anything. If the COR or IH don't sign her
application, the the camping problem is solved unless she is a MC in
which case let her go. You might be surprised you might have fun
inspite of her being there. Oh ya, and for the wives who don't want
their SM husbands out on a camp out with other women, if you can't trust
your husband then either go with him and spend some quality time with
him and your son, or maybe we shouldn't trust him either.

YIS,
Lynn

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