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I have not yet met a Troop where there were more young women than young men. The activities we Scouts do is attractive to only so many young women I suppose. I am disappointed by the implications for gender stereotyping but it should relax some posters.

 

Worrying about the opposite genders thoughts about you are not something that happens at Scouts. They seem quite comfortable. Not much mystique left when they see each other at dawn crawling out of a bag without having had more than a cursory wash the night before. They are more like a big family of brothers and sisters.

 

That's it - families should separate brothers from sisters as soon as they reach 12 years of age.

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No no ozemu, you've got it backwards: they should separate them *until* they reach 12 years.

 

OK I'm joking.

 

But...if we were going to introduce co-ed scouting further into the BSA I actually think it makes more sense to have co-ed troops and leave the cub program alone. At least by the time they're 12 or so boys appear to begin viewing girls as part of the human species again. I can't say the same for many 6-10 year olds. I even remember, as a cub leader, that one particular 8 year old boy paid me the highest of compliments. He said I had come up with a really cool idea for a pack activity...even though I was a (shudder) girl!

 

Then again, this might be a reflection of the fact that my only boy is 11 years old right now and his opinion of girls (well, some of them anyway) seems to have changed quite a bit all of a sudden.

 

Lisa'bob

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All,

 

When I was a scout in the 80's this topic was discussed within my Boy Scout troop.

All my buddies and I loved the fact that it was all boys especially when we were camping. We all felt that we could be ourselves and even dress out side our tents (as an older scout it was hard to change clothing in a two man Erika tent also we did not have any female leaders.)

 

I think the way things are now work great! If you want to have girls around then join a crew! 

 

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I've been a Girl Scout leader for almost 7 years now, but I was a Camp Fire Girl as a child. That organization was actually started a year or two before GSUSA, and at least in the 70's, it was more similar in its outdoor emphasis to the BSA than GS even if the name was less the same. Now "Camp Fire" has gone fully co-ed and has dropped the "Girl" from its name. I don't know much about the current program since I'm not involved in it anymore, but from the national website, it looked a lot less outdoor-oriented than it used to be.

 

As a girl, I had wished that I could be a BS and do "real" camping. But I was glad that at least my CFG troop did car camping and we got to do cool stuff like fry eggs on our own coffee can stoves. In contrast, the GS at my school just went on lots of field trips and did domestic things like sewing. I had to wait until I met my husband, a former BS, in college to do the backpacking that I had always longed to do. And I loved it just like I knew I would.

 

I had dreamed of leading a GS troop on backpacking trips, and sure enough, my daughter who is almost 12 is anxious to do more than the walk-in camping we've done so far as a family while waiting for my son to get a little bigger and stronger. However, my troop AL and the rest of the girls are reluctant to give up hot showers and flush toilets. I talked them into sleeping in a teepee for our camping trip last year, and I think everyone had fun, but this year we're doing it my AL's way: hiking at a state park in the day, and doing outdoor cooking for dinner, but staying at a hotel at night. My AL was a GS from grades 2-12 and a GS leader of a Junior troop as a college student. She likes the outdoors and hiking, but not "roughing it". So I'm sending my daughter to a GS camp in Wisconsin this summer where they do a 4-6 day backpacking trip in Upper Michigan. Perhaps she'll be able to join a Venturing crew when she gets to high school.

 

The point of this is that far fewer girls like typical BS activities than boys. When I was a girl in the 60's and 70's, and women were really starting to do more non-traditional things, I wondered if it would change when I grew up. The answer is that there are still big differences in what girls and boys like to do. I also went into the field of mechanical engineering which has fewer women than almost any other field. There are a lot more women physicians now than 40 years ago, but some fields still have few women.

 

In addition to the fact that girls and boys tend to have somewhat different preferences for activities (*on average* that is, some individuals will be different, like myself and my daughter), I also support having single gender youth groups for another reason: when in mixed groups, many girls will be more passive and will let boys take all the leadership roles. And a lot of boys will feel the need to compete with and "beat" the girls at everything.

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>>In fact I have found that having girls present brings some reality to the machismo. Being dressed down by a young woman for being a foul mouthed abusive and chauvanist adolescent tends to smarten up the rare twit who forgets what respect means.

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Welcome to the Forums, jediwannabe! You wrote:Just to let you know, there are very few Scout Associations that aren't co-ed with BSA being one of them (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Organization_of_the_Scout_Movement_members for a list)What you listed are BOY scout associations around the world (i.e., WOSM members), most of which are undeniably co-ed. If the URL wraps, here's a tinyurl:

 

 

 

To be fair, let's take a look at GIRL scout (or guide) associations and see how many of them are co-ed:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Association_of_Girl_Guides_and_Girl_Scouts_members

 

 

As you can fee, WAGGS has FAR more single-sex associations than WOSM does, but I see no hue and cry to force them into being co-ed (not that you are suggesting that BSA should become co-ed, but many others do).

 

I note that GSUSA is one of the single-sex associations and again, I hear no national movement afoot to make them accept boys. I note also that guiding in the UK (where the guiding movement originated) and in South Africa (where you are from) are both girls-only.

 

I draw no conclusions from the asymmetry -- I merely point it out.

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Barry asks:

 

So I have to ask, what is the problem that needs fixing? The BSA program is already accepted as one of the best youth values programs in the US. Its not as if our youth need releaf from a segregated world that doesnt allow them to mix at school, church, band and even some sports. So what values will be gained by making a major change to our already successful program?

 

The same thing would be said by Microsoft if Congress had granted them a monopoly on software: Why force us to make major changes to our already successful command line DOS just because other countries allow graphical interfaces?

 

Or McDonald's if Congress granted them a monopoly on hamburgers. Why force us to make a major change to our already successful fried hamburgers just because some people like them flame-broiled?

 

Or America On Line if Congress had granted them an online monopoly: Why force us to allow our members access to non-AOL content just because some people want to connect to the actual Internet?

 

The problem that needs fixing is the monopoly, not the program. The BSA has special rights that allow religious conservatives to define Scouting, and exclude from Scouting any Americans who do not sign a pledge to support those values. This religious choke hold on Scouting protects the BSA from the corrective forces of a free market economy.

 

I have met Girl Scout troops in the backwoods that can out-march my Scouts, but the problem with both the GSUSA and the BSA is that they do not have deep woods Advancement requirements. This means that there is no standardized backpacking element, just hit or miss. Believe it or not, you no longer have to go backpacking to earn the BSA Camping Merit Badge!

 

If you believe that putting a pack on your back and walking into the woods with all of the equipment you need to enjoy the wilderness close up is the whole point of Scouting, then in America you must motivate your Scouts to do so, because it is "adding to the requirements" and not a universal element of either program.

 

So the advantage of a free market economy is that if you want your girls (or boys) to experience backpacking as a standard part of their Scouting program, you could choose Baden-Powell Scouting which still retains Baden-Powell's original expedition Advancement requirements. These have been dumbed-down and out of the BSA. But look up the First Class requirements in old BSA Scout Handbooks and you will find the BSA's version of Baden-Powell's "First Class Journey".

 

In B-P's version of Scouting, these expeditions continue on with increasing difficulty as a Scout advances: an unsupervised eight mile hike for 2nd Class, the 15 mile overnight "First Class Journey," and an unsupervised 20 mile overnight journey through rugged territory for the required Senior Scout Venturer Badge.

 

Kudu

 

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Hello Barry,

 

no fairy tails mate - I've watched it happen. But I do not have any idea what other youth groups do. I was talking about Scouts. And I was referring to our Troop in particular. They abide by the Scout Laws - as best as they are able.

 

What strikes me though is that the USA might have more issues with youth gender stereotyping; and that in Oz our youths are used to having girls around. This generation more than mine.

 

This is because all sports, Scouts etc (except Girl Guides!) are coed until about 12-14. Then they split because the power - weight ratios are too uneven.

 

Our Joeys start with girls at age six. They know no different and care not a wit. The coed thing is no an issue and when I mention this discussion for a 'youth check' my Scouts are perplexed that it is worth arguement.

 

So Barry I dare say that you are correct. But change is difficult specially when it is in the face of community norms and I do not think (from your post) that the USA is ready. I am not sure that Australia was either. We did it in two parts. In the early 70's girls were in Scouts from age 14 up. In the early 90's from six up.

 

This weekend I have four boys and two girls aged 11-15 on an over night hike. No one has even realised that the Patrol is coed.

 

It is a non issue after 10-30 years.

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>>So the advantage of a free market economy is that if you want your girls (or boys) to experience backpacking as a standard part of their Scouting program, you could choose Baden-Powell Scouting which still retains Baden-Powell's original expedition Advancement requirements. These have been dumbed-down and out of the BSA. But look up the First Class requirements in old BSA Scout Handbooks and you will find the BSA's version of Baden-Powell's "First Class Journey".

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What? My bad, I was referring to problems that a coed program would fix. Still, I get the feeling you are little angry with the BSA, and that is fine because I hear there is a line, but maybe this discussion is not the right place to express that anger.

 

No, Barry! I insist that it was my bad for making you a "little angry" with me and forcing you to speculate on what my feelings must have been when I made you so, um, "angry." And that is fine, Barry, because I hear there is a line, but maybe this discussion is not the right place to express that anger! :-)

 

I was referring to problems that a coed program would fix.

 

OK, in a nutshell:

 

1) One "problem" that a coed program would fix is that American girls are short-changed because the GSUSA has few if any outdoor advancement requirements that are, you know, required.

 

2) Likewise boys are short-changed because a BSA Scout may progress all the way to Eagle without ever having walked into the woods with a pack on his back.

 

3) A Scouting program is best measured by its advancement requirements, not by what Scouts are allowed to do as an option when they happen to stumble upon a Troop with an inspired outdoor leader.

 

4) To solve these problems, a minority might consider the option of joining a Scouting program that:

 

a) Uses Baden-Powell's Advancement program, based on more rigorous outdoor Advancement requirements than are currently practiced in the United States.

 

b) Has identical requirements for both boys and girls.

 

c) (My own preference is to have) male and female Troops within a Group that function independently enough from each other that adult supervision does not interfere with a truly adult-free Patrol System.

 

d) Most importantly, does not involve convincing Americans such as yourself that there is a problem with their association that a coed program would fix.

 

In other words, the problem with Scouting in the United States is not the program, the problem is the monopoly.

 

Kudu

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I'm probably going to raise some hackles, but I think that the reason that people want a co-ed BS, but don't push for a co-ed GS (as noted by fgoodwin), is that people want to extend the benefits of BS to girls, more than they feel that adding girls would create a better program for the boys.

 

My knowledge of the two programs comes from 7 years as a GS leader (quite active at the Service Unit level) and from what my husband has told me about superb BS troop that he was in as a scout. Here are my comments:

 

I find it fascinating that BS involvement seems to peak in the early to mid teen years, whereas I think there may be more Brownies (grades 1-3) than Juniors (grades 3-6) and I know that the numbers drop off dramatically when the girls get to junior high. I believe that one reason is that (as pointed out in other forums) many (most?) GS leaders are unable to make the transition from adult leader to adult advisor. Many DLs and CMs also find it difficult to transition to SM or ASM, but usually they can join an established troop where they can learn how boy-led troops work and the role of the SM and ASM rather than struggling to do it on their own.

 

There are very few GS troops run like the BS model where the troop is a multi-age-group unit with new members joining and older members leaving, but having continuity because it is more than a single cohort. I'm guessing that where there are established regional Cadette/Senior troops that Junior GS can join (I've heard of a few of these), that more girls stay in GS in their teens. In my area, where GS is not strong even for the younger age groups, there is a new enormous "Studio 2B" troop (the new GS program for teens) set up by a man who is a former Eagle scout. I think his BS experience allowed him to understand how to set up a successful teen program even though his own daughters are only in elementary school. We'll have to see if the Studio 2B troop is able to continue past the first year or so.

 

But besides there being few GS troops for girls older than 11, I think that the BS is a better program than GS. Kudu, if you think the current BSA requirements are watered down, you would be truly horrified by the current GS requirements. With the latest change in edition for the Junior badge book that happened several years ago, I found it surprising how much easier they made the "Sign of..." badges to earn. The "Sign of the Rainbow" requirements went from earning 7 badges in all different areas to earning only ONE complete badge plus doing several scattered activities from a few other badges. While it is true that the Junior GS in my troop could never have earned any of the Signs with the old requirements, I don't approve of the watering down of the program. I have come to accept that none of the girls in my troop is very achievement-oriented with respect to GS. It's OK because they don't seem to care that they don't earn a lot of badges, and they still learn a lot in terms of the traditional scouting values. I do think that GSUSA mistakenly thought that it could attract more girls to the program by making it easier to earn awards.

 

I think that in order to implement Kudu's youth group program such that a reasonable number of girls would indeed have a chance to join, you would need to allow co-ed troops because in most places there simply aren't enough girls who would be interested in a program that involved requirements such as backpacking to form all-girl troops. I know that there are all-boy, co-ed, and all-girl Venturing crews, but I don't know the percentages of the various types. I'd be very surprised if there are as many all-girl as all-boy crews and I'd expect that in most of the co-ed crews there are more boys than girls as well. I like the fact that the crews can have whatever gender make-up they want.

 

There are some who have pointed out that there are a limited number of truly dedicated adults to help with youth groups, so adding girls may decrease the opportunities for boys. But I would like to point out that many of the girls who would join the program have parents who would be involved who are not currently involved in BSA. Also, it's a little bit like arguing that most medical schools should have stayed all-male because now there are fewer spots for men since half the spots go to women. And honestly, even though I might have been a BS if it was available to me 30 years ago, and my daughter might be a BS now if she could, I don't think that BSA would be over-run with girls if it allowed co-ed dens and troops.

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Amen to the comment about efforts to make GSUSA co-ed! If anything is all-male these days it's seen as sexist, but if something is all-female people accept that women have different needs from men. Fact is, men have different needs from women as well, in spite of how much society may want to teach otherwise.

 

Kudu: Where's this monopoly? The ratio might be like that of Microsoft to Apple, but I do beg to differ about there being one. If you don't like the BSA then you've got the option of the Campfire program that someone else has mentioned already, the Royal Rangers, or even that Spiral Scouts program that someone mentioned in another thread (all of which are co-ed). If you don't like the fact that they don't have the prestige that the BSA has attained, then perhaps that's a sign that people in those programs need to go out and do great things as well, and not be ashamed of their associations with the program.

 

While I agree that returning to more of an outdoor focus would be good for the program as well, it's not like it hasn't been making progress in that direction. In 1972 they revised it so that the Camping merit badge wasn't even on the required list, you could do everything without even setting foot outside your city limits (this was also when Backpacking received its spot as a separate merit badge). 1979 they made it required again to try and rectify that problem and made hiking a required part of Second Class again. 1999 rolled around and they added Hiking and Cycling to the list of required merit badges, strengthening the outdoor requirements (granted, I'm not happy that they took Safety off the list as part of the trade, personally...). I'm sure that with time we'll see it come back even stronger.

 

As EagleDad has been saying, while the program isn't perfect, it's quite good at what it does and what it is intended to do. While there's nothing wrong at all with having female leadership in units, and I agree that young men need to learn how to appropriately behave around young women, making the BSA into a coed program will only water it down, due to the aforementioned (if often denied) separate needs of men and women, and more particularly boys and girls in their teenage years.

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Barry, thanks and no worries. I am not going to debate whether BSA should be coed.

 

Just trying to correct some assumptions that do not hold water here.

 

Oddly I have been known to say that our Troop needs more girls. I suppose that I am biased. I have a son and a daughter in the Troop.

 

On a different tack - Why does single gender education work for girls better than boys? I work at an outdoor education camp. All girls groups are more humane than all boys groups. Girls schools generally show really well. Boys schools seem to have way too many boofheads. One on one they are all good kids. In a group they act differently - same for the badly abused kids.

 

Boys are not all abused but in a boys group they seem to suffer the same stresses and reactions as abused kids. That tells me that here all boy groups are generally not safe places - or they would behave differently. In mixed groups boys have less extreme behaviours and fewer act out in total. This is not researched but my observations only.

 

Thankfully you do not have these problems in the USA. Not being sarcastic - from previous posts these things do not seem to be evident in the USA. Your all boy groups are humane and safe emotional places. I wish it were the same here.(This message has been edited by ozemu)

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Kaji writes:

 

Kudu: Where's this monopoly? ...I do beg to differ about there being one. Campfire ...Royal Rangers...Spiral Scouts

 

The monopoly centers around the BSA's special rights to any word based on "Scout." This does not effect Campfire or Royal Rangers, but the existence of programs such as Spiralscouts will hinge on a legal challenge launched by a group named Youthscouts. The case will be heard in San Francisco, and if they get a favorable ruling the BSA will have to appeal to the Ninth Circuit. So it is possible that Americans might soon become aware of the fact that other countries allow freedom in Scouting. See:

 

http://youthscouts.org/news.html

 

If you don't like the fact that they don't have the prestige that the BSA has attained, then perhaps that's a sign that people in those programs need to go out and do great things as well, and not be ashamed of their associations with the program.

 

I agree completely, although a Scouting association based on Baden-Powell's ideas would be all-volunteer except for clerical positions. So, almost by definition a Baden-Powell Scouting association would not be interested in the corporate numbers game "prestige" of the BSA.

 

Eagledad writes:

 

Boy, lets just say we are on to completely different planets here.

 

I agree!

 

Anger was the farthest emotion from my mind.

 

Me either! Isn't that a coincidence? :-)

 

Confusion best describes my reaction to your post.

 

Thank you for your efforts to understand. Most readers probably just skip on to the next post.

 

I just couldnt see how you were answering my question on the subject of the BSA going coed.

 

I'm not. I believe that it will take less effort to establish new Scouting associations than it will to change the BSA.

 

So I assumed I didnt ask the question clearly, thats all.

 

I am still learning how to write clearly. You know what new Junior Leaders often say, "I explained it perfectly, but nobody understood."

 

Your last explanations makes a little more sense on your thinking of program problems, but a bit of a reach for the justification of two major youth organizations going coed.

 

Perhaps #4 should read:

 

"4) To solve these problems, a minority should consider the option of establishing alternative Scouting programs that:"

 

I believe that an American branch of the UK Baden-Powell Scouts Association would solve most of the problems that Americans have with the BSA.

 

I dont see how it solves your monopoly complaint, which seems is the base of your post. Im lost on your format of thought here. So again, my bad?

 

The thing about government-established monopolies is that they are so all-pervasive that people are not even aware of them.

 

It reminds me of the movie "The Matrix."

 

They say that nobody knows who discovered water, but it certainly was not a fish!

 

Kudu

 

 

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