Re: Girls in Scouts
Lew Bowling (LBOWLING@UKCC.UKY.EDU)
Mon, 21 Mar 1994 12:52:37 EST
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 08:58:16 EST
> From: Lew BOwling <LBOWLING@ukcc.uky.edu>
. . .
> But there are fewer and fewer opportunities for boys to be with
> boys and girls to be with girls. I think it's a valuable
> opportunity that shouldn't be made to disappear.
>Certainly, otherwise how could we hope to have any of the current
>biases maintained for a few more generations! I apologize for being
>sarcastic, but with very trivial substitutions, this could have been
>taken word-for-word from the defense of an all male (or all white for
>that matter) social club.
>Perhaps you (and Doug) could expand a bit on these rites of passage
>etc. and try to convince me that it doesn't all come back to plain
>old-fashioned sexism. What is it that you want the boys to be doing
>that would be inappropriate without blanket gender discrimination in
>place?
Rick
Rick,
This has nothing to do with bias, rite of passage, sexism, or gender
discrimination. In case you hadn't noticed, there ARE major differences
between boys and girls ages 11-18. Those differences cause the sexual
attraction and pressures that are typical of adolescents. They're the
reason that boys and girls act very differently around each other than
when they're apart.
I'm not suggesting that either boys or girls are superior or inferior, or
that opportunities should be denied to one or the other, or that they should
not be permitted to interact on an equal basis. I'm merely suggesting that
it might be a good thing for boys AND girls to have the opportunity for
activities free of the need to react to the opposite sex.
As someone else mentioned, I was in a summer camp situation with teenage
girls on the staff and present in an Explorer Post. I guarantee that the
main concern for many of the boys was not scoutcraft that week. There were
probably a few more leaders hanging around the waterfront as well.
It's not "what...I want the boys to be doing that would be inappropriate
without blanket gender discrimination in place." It's what I don't want
them to be doing.
Lew
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
