New controversy...Let's let girls into all levels of Scouting

[dkurtenbach]

The inclusion of girls requires changes to the program' date=' which is all that Scouting is.[/quote']

 

Whenever this topic comes up, many people say something like this. The question I have is "what changes are required"?

None, really.

[suzisk8]

Today at our annual minor league baseball Scout Day, I saw some girls in their GSA uniforms. As I was walking back to our seat after the on field ceremony, I noticed a kid with really long hair (no objection to the hair issue, I mean look at Keegan (Yeti) from Are You Tougher than a Boy Scout). Then on a closer look, I was very surprised she was a girl, in a full blown Bear uniform. It totally blew my mind. Honestly, I think that boys need to stick with boys for an organization such as ours. I notice at elementary school age, the girls do not play with the boys (son is in third grade). Granted that GSA is not the GSA I was in in the 70's. It is tough for siblings, we have a couple of families where the sisters come to events and cannot earn the awards the boys do. I am very torn on this subject, and it is a tough one.

[dkurtenbach]

Are we talking about all BSA programs being co-ed down to and including dens and patrols? Or are we talking about allowing female-only Cub Scout packs and female-only Boy Scout troops? You can open the very desirable Boy Scout program to girls without making all units co-ed.

[Rick_in_CA]

One thing to remember about venture groups. It is optional for them if they accept girls. Not all venture groups do. I imagine if the BSA became open to girls at all levels, it will be optional. If a unit doesn't want to deal with it, they can say no.

[ThomasJefferson]

Some of these comments are hilarious.

 

I was a boy. I don't remember hurting for time "being a boy." I pretty much was one all the time. How does having girls present keep boys from being boys? If the boys aren't allowed to swear, go skinny dipping in the pond, or talk about girls & sex with male leaders present, then how does adding girls change anything? The program has already neutered the boy-specific activities and boy-oriented nature of the scouts. It is essentially already primed for girl participation.

 

As for the Cub Scouts, I have no idea why that is not co-ed now. Girls already come to everything, and cub scouts is run by women. What the heck are we resisting there?

 

[BS-87]

Boys behave differently in the presence of girls as a matter of fact. This is simply because girls are different, and even Cub Scouts realize it. They think different, act different, and learn different.

 

A method of Scouting is Uniforming. While any boy of any background can conform to the mores and norms of a group of boys, it is a rare girl that's able to do so.

 

While I agree it can still be fun with girls, and in often cases more fun with the girls present, something is lost in the learning and development sphere when the boys are behaving in a way that conforms to a standard of mixed gender learning instead of only having to conform to the standards of "boys being boys". The best example is the silencing factor girls have on most boys. Because they realize the thoughts of girls are different, there is less blurting out of boy thoughts. Those are often pretty profound in the sense that they show where a boy's understanding of the subject matter lies.

 

If it were that reason alone, I'd continue to wholeheartedly support gender segregation in Scouting.

[blw2]

tough issues, maybe.... but as a dad of one cub scout age boy and two younger girls that are involved in almost everything their big brother is doing with scouts anyway, I think it would be a good idea to just let them in.

I imagine girl dens and boy dens under one pack. Gives some needed separation, but also keeps together for the family outings etc....

[ghermanno]

I have seen the "Scouting" in various countries. Most allow female patrols & male patrols. They camp separated and have proper adult supervision. I have noticed that they do NOT seem near as awkward around females as the BSA does. (For example the Korean Girls loved to visit the BSA boys because they would run away or be shy around them.)

 

I personally think the BSA should become the US Scouting Association. There is more to be learned from working together than there is by ignoring one another and treating one as a lesser deserving sex.

 

Can it work? Yes. Will it work? Probably not with the helicopter parents and the naysayers trying to kill the thought before it becomes real.

 

Just my $0.02

 

[perdidochas]

On a rainy campout when a few of the boys start getting stir crazy and start a mud slinging fight I bet the girls will want to jump right in' date=' at first. Then the boys keep escalating and all of a sudden we have girls in tears. At 14, there is less of that type of thing, but we need to let the younger boys be boys, tell their gross stories and sling the mud. If the GS program has a problem, it needs to be addressed.[/quote']

 

 

There will be a boy in tears when the 11 yr old 45 lb scout has a load of mud poured on him by the 14 yr old 200 lb scout. On a rainy campout, our boys started to play a version of dodge ball with a frisbee. One of the smaller boys got hit in the chest by a throw from one of the larger boys, and he was complaining about his bruised chest for weeks.....

[Rick_in_CA]

This is simply because girls are different' date=' and even Cub Scouts realize it. They think different, act different, and learn different.[/quote']

 

While it is true that boys and girls are different, I wonder how different? I think many of our schools have taken things too far in the boys should act and learn just like the girls direction. But I am worried that one reaction to that is to go too far in the "boys and girls are different" direction. We don't want to go back to the days of "girls can't do math" or "boys can't be nurturing".

 

[Cambridgeskip]

Old controversy, but anyway.

 

Boys and girls learn differently, have different natural proclivities and strengths/weaknesses, are motivated by different methods, etc. Some girls would fit right into Boy Scouts, and some boys would fit right into a knitting circle, and somewhere there is a white crow.

 

I honestly don't see any problem with it. The USA is actually an outlyer organization (along with the God and Gays issue) compared to MOST other nations in the World Scouting Organization' date=' especially most of the European countries, to include the UK (Scoutings founding country).[/quote']

Scouting's founding country is the USA, where Ernest Thompson Seton and Daniel Carter Beard founded the Woodcraft Indians and Sons of Daniel Boone in order to channel the energies of restless urban boys with programs designed for boys to interest boys. Baden-Powell's military manual was interesting to boys because of its content, BP's Boy Scouts program only worked once he lifted Seton's method and merit system.

 

And that is why Boy Scouts is not for girls. It is designed for boys. The inclusion of girls requires changes to the program, which is all that Scouting is. In many of those European countries, and many others across the world, Scouting is not a private organization, it is an arm of government and as such it acts like one, including all comers and doing whatever needs to be done to the program to do so. Not so in America, and that is not bad.

 

Some local units here already admit girls into Cub and Boy scouts http://www.wgbhnews.org/post/cambridge-boy-scout-troop-bucks-national-trend-gay-participation

Some local units do all kinds of things, and some local units shouldn't be Boy Scouts if they don't want to do things as proscribed. Boy Scouts exists because all over the Western world at the turn of the century men took an interest in the plight of young boys who weren't even their own, and decided to invest in them uniquely. They came from every background, from rough frontiersmen to clergy to wealthy progressives to cult of body idealists, not because they were setting out to "discriminate" or segregate, but because they saw a need for a particular sympathetic creature, the boy, and picked him for the philanthropy.

Er.... where on earth do you get the bit about European scout associations being a branch of the government?

[Cambridgeskip]

The view from across the pond....

 

So as you know scouting in the UK is fully mixed. However it is still male dominated, about 85%. It is unlikely to really move from that. The reason that the programme is different to that which the Girl Guides offers. The result is that scouts appeals to a minority of boys. They tend to be far more robust than girls who go to Guides and are far more interested in getting out there and doing the adventurous programme which scouts offers.

 

In the scout section, 10-14 year olds, we get very little of the "boy meets girl" side of things. It does happen from time to time, I have a couple sniffing around each other at the moment right now but so far it has not caused a problem. There is more of it in the 14-18 Explorer age range but again it is rare for it to be a problem. The fact is kids sign up to scouts to go climbing and canoeing rather than meet boys/girls.

 

It does cause a few practical problems such as ensuring we have a range of tent sizes so that you can easily maintain the patrol system and still have single sex sleeping. While not compulsory I like to ensure I have a female leader with me for camps.

 

[Nike]

I can see both sides of this, but I think my kids, 10 year old girl and 11 year old boy, would choose single-sex at this point if offered the choice. My son had noticed that the girls tend to organize themselves to their own advantage when it comes to classroom voting, voting as a large block to thwart the unorganized plans of pairs of boys. And, my daughter is already picking out potential boyfriends according to how much they agree with her.

 

 

 

[packsaddle]

I can see both sides of this, but I think my kids, 10 year old girl and 11 year old boy, would choose single-sex at this point if offered the choice. My son had noticed that the girls tend to organize themselves to their own advantage when it comes to classroom voting, voting as a large block to thwart the unorganized plans of pairs of boys. And, my daughter is already picking out potential boyfriends according to how much they agree with her.

 

 

Men work diligently to cultivate skills in their devious tendencies. Women merely summon them.

[MattR]

I can see both sides of this, but I think my kids, 10 year old girl and 11 year old boy, would choose single-sex at this point if offered the choice. My son had noticed that the girls tend to organize themselves to their own advantage when it comes to classroom voting, voting as a large block to thwart the unorganized plans of pairs of boys. And, my daughter is already picking out potential boyfriends according to how much they agree with her.

 

 

Have you ever noticed how little boys beat on things and little girls beat on emotions. Children beat on things to understand them. Boys are wired to understand things, girls are wired to understand people. Not always, but generally. We had an exchange student from Denmark stay with us and she was a scout. She, said, confirming what someone else said, that most scouts are boys. The bigger difference seems to be that in Europe parents aren't involved, it's mostly 20 somethings. She was very jealous of our calendar, though.