History of Swedish girl scouting

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

Like Skeptic, all this attention to gender in BSA scouting made me curious about what gender-segregated scouting in Sweden used to be like. Even the words for gender segregated scouting sound antiquated and sepia-toned. It's hard to imagine. But apparently someone wrote a thesis on it recently, and so Scouterna has an information page on it. Since there's a language barrier for all other WOSM NSOs other than Scouts UK, I thought I'd post a translation.

"Scout magazine MARCH 8, 2022

When the girls took up scouting

That others than boys would be allowed to be part of the Scouts was far from obvious when it started, but despite strong opposition, the pioneers of girl scouting managed to champion their cause. Here is a part of history that is all too often forgotten.

If you've been to a regular scout meeting, you've probably seen it sitting on the wall - the portrait of Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the scouting movement. But have you heard of Agnes Baden Powell? Or Ludde, Pelle, Pirre and the others who made sure that girls also got to experience scouting?

From the beginning, girls were not meant to become scouts, says Bodil Formark, who is a historian and has written the first thesis on the history of girl scouting in Sweden.

- It is quite clear when you consider that the basic foundation of the movement is called Scouting for Boys, she says.

After scouting was launched in 1907, it quickly became a worldwide success. In 1909 it came to Sweden - for boys. Around this year, however, the first steps towards a scouting movement for girls were also taken. At Wallinska School in Stockholm, the three students Gerda Blomberg (Ludde), Elin Fris (Pelle) and Signe Geijer (Pirre) became interested in scouting in 1910, and brought along three of their teachers as scout leaders.

- The Wallinska School was one of the oldest girls' schools in Sweden, a place where many of the first female academics either studied or taught, so it is a special environment in which scouting for girls arose, says Bodil.

At first, the girl scouts were met with resistance - among other things, it was discussed in the press whether it was really appropriate for girls to practice scouting.

- In that way, the story of girl scouting is an example of something that still exists in our society. That what girls or women do is always subject to discussion. Can they play football? Can they do this or what if they do that?

During 1913, Svenska Flickors Scoutförbund (SFS) or Sweden's Girls' Scout Organization was formed, the first organization to bring together girl scouts. In the business that was built up bit by bit, eventually nationally, the girls got to be more than just girls. They could be scouts, with all that that entailed. There were class tests, special badges, world conferences and of course camp activities.

- The movement primarily wanted to educate girls to become good scouts. A lot of girls' and women's history has been about being a girl in the right way, but here we had a movement that said "Well, you're a girl, but you should also be a scout".

In Sweden, women only got the right to vote in 1919 and could participate in their first election in 1921. Girl scouting was thus pioneering girls' freedoms, and Bodil Formark believes that this was due to several things. On the one hand, the girls at the Wallinska School and the other founders belonged to an upper middle class, and therefore had both resources and opportunities to have a spare time.

In part, the first leaders, according to Bodil, were able to handle the debate that arose about girls becoming scouts in a strategic way. By creating a program that was not too radical and outrageous, they were able to gain approval from more people. What they then did could be considerably more radical.

An example is the long skirt that the girl scouts wore as a scout uniform. At the time, the fact that girls wore pants was considered controversial by many.

- There are accounts that they wore the skirts when they went to the camp, but that they threw them off as soon as they got out into the forest. "Oh, how wonderful to be able to climb trees!"

After a long process  with a lot of discussion, the organizations Sweden's Girls' Scout Association and Sweden's Scout Association finally merged in the 1960s. Having separate scout meetings for children of different genders can now feel quite distant. Within Scouterna in Sweden, there are today only a few gender-separated groups.

- Scouterna wants to follow and reflect society! In our society today, and for quite some time now, all genders are mixed in, for example, school and the like, says Anna-Karin Hennig, who is general secretary at the Scouts.

The organization Scouterna is a member of the world organization WAGGGS, which gathers scouts who are girls. Outside Sweden there are still many scouting activities for girls only.

- WAGGGS is one of the world's largest "girls only organizations" and is needed to make it possible for girls and young women around the world to have a leisure occupation. Being part of a mixed organization is simply not possible everywhere in the world, says Anna-Karin.

Bodil Formark believes that the scouting movement in Sweden has so far had problems telling its story. It is the boy scouts that are highlighted and often girl scouting has been forgotten. She wants what has existed, and meant so much to thousands of girls and women, not to be forgotten.

- To understand why the Girl Scout movement has not been given the same space in the writing of history, I believe that the movement would need to learn more about the power imbalances under which the merger took place, but also seriously discuss whether gender-integrated scouting has really increased equality within the movement. For me as a historian, the question of the history of the girl scout movement is ultimately a question of justice. If the movement is to tell its story, which is of course a choice, it should tell the story in a way that does not make half the activity invisible or diminish.

Did you know that…

...it used to be common in Swedish girl scouting with scout names? It could be names like Ludde, Bro, Jerker, Babs, Pålle or Laxen. The names were used, among other things, because it was considered ugly to call an older person "you".

...there were many different special badges for the scouts within the Swedish Girls' Scout Association to earn? They were about lots of different things, such as bookbinding, shooting, barn keeping, astronomy, folk dancing and language interpretation.

...Signe Hammarsten (Ham) was not only one of the first three leaders of Swedish girl scouts, but was also the mother of the famous writer and artist Tove Jansson.

Do you want to learn more about Girl Scouting in Sweden?

Bodil Formark's dissertation The well-situated girl: About the history of the Swedish girl scout movement 1910-1940 can be ordered at denvalsitueradeflickan.wordpress.com . Last autumn, "Knight of a Thousand Adventures" was performed - a theater performance inspired by the thesis."

Original text at https://www.scouterna.se/aktuellt/tidningen-scout/nar-tjejerna-intog-scouting/

Edited April 21 by AwakeEnergyScouter
Typo

[skeptic 1002]

From my reading, I believe that Agnes, BP's sister, was asked, or perhaps assigned, the role of developing a girl group after BP met with a large group of girls at the first International gathering in London.  According to the report, the girls told him to his face that girls could and should be scouts, and they made their own group.  Eventually, Lady BP of course took over the program more or less as Agnes never really enjoyed it particularly.  I continue to find that tale amusing, as most of us may have met a few focused and determined young women.  

 

[qwazse 4350]

Understatement …

On 4/21/2024 at 4:00 PM, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

long process  with a lot of discussion

Scouterna’s site used to be packed with a lot more details on its front page. It seems like a marketing agency got a hold of it and fell for Western “don’t let words get in the way of great pictures” style.

From the original site, I learned that integration was contentious, and the king was instrumental in getting all parties on board. It made me feel proud to have launched a catapult for Carl Gustav when he visited the pioneering area at National Jamboree.

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

I would have liked to have ordered her thesis, but she only takes Swish as payment and you can't open a Swish account with a foreign address.

Do you remember how it was contentious?

[qwazse 4350]

11 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

I would have liked to have ordered her thesis, but she only takes Swish as payment and you can't open a Swish account with a foreign address.

Do you remember how it was contentious?

I don’t exactly. (Plus it was an English translation of the page that I think was originally written by youth. So a lot may have been lost in translation and generationally. ) My impression was that the girls’ organization wasn’t playing well with other scout associations, and the king, having been a scout himself, served as a neutral party with authority.

Also, the Swedish scouters who I’ve met were relatively young, and not historians. So their description of their scout movement was limited to their generation. I myself was too immature to strike up a conversation with Carl Gustav, let alone probe him on what it took for he and his fellow citizens to inspire a co-ed scouting organization.

Lesson: if you have elders in your family or friends who were scouts, now is the time to interview them on their childhood and young adult experiences.

[AwakeEnergyScouter 248]

7 hours ago, qwazse said:

I don’t exactly. (Plus it was an English translation of the page that I think was originally written by youth. So a lot may have been lost in translation and generationally. ) My impression was that the girls’ organization wasn’t playing well with other scout associations, and the king, having been a scout himself, served as a neutral party with authority.

Also, the Swedish scouters who I’ve met were relatively young, and not historians. So their description of their scout movement was limited to their generation. I myself was too immature to strike up a conversation with Carl Gustav, let alone probe him on what it took for he and his fellow citizens to inspire a co-ed scouting organization.

Lesson: if you have elders in your family or friends who were scouts, now is the time to interview them on their childhood and young adult experiences.

I asked my dad, but it was the generation before him that experienced the change so his experience was pretty much like mine... at this point you really need a historian, the people who lived it are almost all dead now.

I did find out that during his time, our troop was a sea scout ship. They spent a lot of spring meetings readying the boats. We still owned some of them when I came through, moored at the same dock. Even though we were a troop we did learn to rig and sail gigs, probably because the troop used to be a ship!