Boy Scouts to allow girls

[CarolAnn856]

I honestly believe that if the Girl Scouts lose members to the Boy Scouts, they only have themselves to blame. I was a leader when the "Joyrneys" thing started. I often felt like I was assigning the girls in my troop a research assignment. Instead of learning how to do something, they were reading about other girls and women who did things. It was, in my opinion, the antithesis of what scouting should be about.

Another thing that I disliked was that the girls in the troop were all the same age. Having an older son in Boy Scouts, I really got to see the advantages of having mixed ages. The younger boys looked up to the older ones and learned so much from them, and the older scouts truly gained leadership skills as they taught the newer boys skills, set behavior standards, etc.

 

[LittleMissMagic]

Okay, not directly related to Boy/Girl Scouts, but on a similar line of thought - many college "Sororities" are actually Fraternities because they were founded before all-girl sororities actually existed. And even so, I believe it is in the bi-laws of all sororities that if a male chose to rush and pledge (assuming he met all of the requirements, got through initiation, and received a bid), they wouldn't be able to discriminate against him just because he is male. However, you don't see guys in Sororities.... why? Because there are Fraternities!

My point being that just because the Boy Scouts now accept girls doesn't mean that girls are lining up to participate. If Girl Scouts really is a female equivalent, then there isn't much of a need. I think that not discriminating against gender is great for the rare girl who really wants to join Boy Scouts over Girl Scouts, but I don't think that it's about to become a 50/50 split of male/female in the Cub Scouts.

 

[piccolopat]

I'll put my bias out there first: I've done a ton of research and work in girls/women in STEM areas, so that's the perspective I'm using. For girls, study after study show that they participate less and take fewer risks (which are hugely important in science fields!) when there are boys around. Girls are less likely to volunteer to lead an activity if there are boys around. Less likely to try a new skill that they've never done before. Less likely to ask questions and less likely to be called upon to answer a question. This starts in late elementary school and goes down hill from there. Obviously this doesn't apply to all girls or to all environments, but enough research has been done that shows these trends, that it's something to be concerned about. Having a place where girls can go a few times a month where they are just around girls gives them the opportunity to be the leaders and to take risks.
I'm not by ANY means saying that all girls need that opportunity, or that they can't be leaders and risk takers else where, but having a place where girls can safely develop those skills is hugely beneficial for SOME girls.

As for boys, my son is your stereotypical active hyper crazy little boy. He works SO hard at school all day to keep it together and behave. Having a place where it's normal and OK to be active and crazy, where he won't be compared to the adorable little girl sitting still and coloring, is good for him too. (Like I said, boy scouts didn't work out to be that place for my son, but I can easily see how it would be for many boys.)

The article I read said that the troops will not be co-ed. There apparently will be separate troops for boys and girls, at least at the Cub Scouts level. Details on the higher levels aren't available yet.

 

[piccolopat]

Like others, my experience as a GS was very different that DD. When I was in GS, we wore uniforms to our meetings, worked on badges as a troop and were encouraged to earn additional badges on our own. Badges were in a wide variety of topics that related to home and community life, sports, the arts, crafts and scout related topics like camping. We camped once a year with proceeds from our cookie sale. We took classes in first aid, water safety and learned useful skills that serve me well to this day. When DD went, her troop was more of a social club. They camped once (actually went to a camp but stayed in a cabin) but then they decided to do trips instead - Howe Caverns, Salem MA, etc. The year she quit, the troop decided their trip would be a cruise to New England at a cost of hundreds of dollars per girl plus the cost for parents that went. They almost never worked on badges as a troop, didn't do the community service we did (singing at nursing homes, fund raising for various causes, etc.) or wore uniforms, even for parades. If today's girl's can get a better experience with another organization, it's a good thing.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

I think it definitely matters what adults are involved. I was in Girl Scouts for a few years in elementary school. Our leader was also a Mary Kay consultant. Many of our meetings were about skin care. And for the meetings when our moms were invited too, it was about trying all the new Mary Kay makeup and selling it to our moms. I earned badges on my own but no, our leader should've never been our leader! We did sell cookies but we never did anything with the money and after a few years, everyone quit and there wasn't girl scouts anymore.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I was a Brownie/Junior Girl Scout for a few years and I was generally bored out of my mind, but I remember being totally envious of the stuff my cousin got to do in Boy Scouts. I remember him working to beat his time on some cool obstacle course type of thing, learning how to build fires, getting to carve things with knives, doing all kinds of nature activities, and it seemed like he was always going camping or rafting or... Meanwhile, my troop met in a church where we cut felt and glued cotton balls to construction paper and the highlight of the year was being forced to sell cookies. I wish I could've been a Boy Scout.

 

[BLAZEY]

Like others, my experience as a GS was very different that DD. When I was in GS, we wore uniforms to our meetings, worked on badges as a troop and were encouraged to earn additional badges on our own. Badges were in a wide variety of topics that related to home and community life, sports, the arts, crafts and scout related topics like camping. We camped once a year with proceeds from our cookie sale. We took classes in first aid, water safety and learned useful skills that serve me well to this day. When DD went, her troop was more of a social club. They camped once (actually went to a camp but stayed in a cabin) but then they decided to do trips instead - Howe Caverns, Salem MA, etc. The year she quit, the troop decided their trip would be a cruise to New England at a cost of hundreds of dollars per girl plus the cost for parents that went. They almost never worked on badges as a troop, didn't do the community service we did (singing at nursing homes, fund raising for various causes, etc.) or wore uniforms, even for parades. If today's girl's can get a better experience with another organization, it's a good thing.

My daughter's Brownie pack is going to a camp skills event this weekend and already has 2 camps plan for this year. They work on badges and program work at meeting and are encouraged to do interest badges on their own as well. Does Girl Scouts not have a program of things the girls need to complete before moving up to the next level?

 

[PrincessBelle39]

Scouts Canada has been Co-ed for years. Girl Guides of Canada is still all female (including trans girls). The girls I know that do Scouts over Guides have brothers in the organization and parents just put the girls in scouts for ease scheduling. My daughter is an only and is in the Guiding stream as that is what I did and my mum is still a unit guider. If there wasn't a Guiding unit available I would not hesitate to put her in Scouts. My husband was a scout and from what he says the programs here were fairly similar when we were kids.

Same here in Australia. My dd (now 13) was a cub scout when she was younger. She transitioned to Scouts and then left the following year due to the time ballet took up. She loved Scouts. She was one of several girls in the troupe.

 

[CarolAnn856]

Okay, not directly related to Boy/Girl Scouts, but on a similar line of thought - many college "Sororities" are actually Fraternities because they were founded before all-girl sororities actually existed. And even so, I believe it is in the bi-laws of all sororities that if a male chose to rush and pledge (assuming he met all of the requirements, got through initiation, and received a bid), they wouldn't be able to discriminate against him just because he is male. However, you don't see guys in Sororities.... why? Because there are Fraternities!

My point being that just because the Boy Scouts now accept girls doesn't mean that girls are lining up to participate. If Girl Scouts really is a female equivalent, then there isn't much of a need. I think that not discriminating against gender is great for the rare girl who really wants to join Boy Scouts over Girl Scouts, but I don't think that it's about to become a 50/50 split of male/female in the Cub Scouts.

As many of us have shared, the BSA and GSA programs are often far from equilavent. Given the current number of girls involved in Venture Scouts, and STEM Scouts where it is being piloted, I think there will be quite a few more than the "rare girl" who joins.

 

[msjprincess]

I honestly believe that if the Girl Scouts lose members to the Boy Scouts, they only have themselves to blame. I was a leader when the "Joyrneys" thing started. I often felt like I was assigning the girls in my troop a research assignment. Instead of learning how to do something, they were reading about other girls and women who did things. It was, in my opinion, the antithesis of what scouting should be about.

Another thing that I disliked was that the girls in the troop were all the same age. Having an older son in Boy Scouts, I really got to see the advantages of having mixed ages. The younger boys looked up to the older ones and learned so much from them, and the older scouts truly gained leadership skills as they taught the newer boys skills, set behavior standards, etc.

ITA

My son was a Boy Scout. My two daughters were Girl Scouts and I was a leader for 9 years.

They started doing Journeys when my youngest was in 1st grade, it was torturous. It was like homework for them, they hated it. I remember the Journey book was above the reading level of half the troop. So they couldn't do it on their own. We'd sit around in the meeting having them read aloud so that we could help them.

I also like the way Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts interact with different ages. My son got to know all of the older boys in his Pack/Troop. The older boys helped with the younger boys. With the girls we did a few events during the year with the entire Service Unit but they never really got to know each other. Maybe that was just our SU and it's different other places.

 

[jevs]

I was a Brownie and it was truly mind numbing. My brother did loads of fun stuff in Cubs and Scouts, I never made it to Guides.

AFAIK Scouts have been co-ed in Australia for some time.

 

[Southernmiss]

I had a wonderful experience as a Girl Scout from 1976 to 1986 and did get my Gold Award. I had the same grandmother as a leader the whole time. Tent camping, cabin camping, badge work, etc. Lots of skills learned. The only fundraisers were cookie sales and not hard sales, just to family and friends and a couple of table sales. We did have minimal troop dues and reasonable costs for camping or supplies.

I was so excited to have a daughter. She did daisys for 1 year. What. A. Different. Organization and experience it was. Sell this. Sell that. The district needs $. The straw that broke the camel's back was when it was announced at the first meeting of year 2 that the that this year would be fundraising for a Disney trip. That's when we walked away. Dd then found her love of soccer and we never looked back.

Maybe these are organizations whose time has come and gone and it's time to let them die a natural death.

 

[rotlex]

Bias alert:
I can't stand the Girl Scouts organization. What I'm about to say is full of emotion and the following is not meant in a negative way toward anyone whose children participate in Girl Scouts. I'm glad that there are families who truly enjoy it.

I have no problem with BSA opening up their scouting organization to both genders. Reaching Eagle Scout actually means something. You actually develop useful skills.

Girl Scouts are a joke. I was a Girl Scout for many years as a kid. And had ODD in it briefly in elementary school. Big mistake. It did not work out very well for us. A close friend had her 2 DDs in Girl Scouts for many years and she was even a troop leader for much of that time. Nothing but drama between all of the GS moms. So much focus was on cookie sales. Badge activities were useless stuff like making a placemat and other dumb arts & crafts. What a previous poster said about the quality of the GS troop totally being based on the troop leader is totally true. Close Friend was the Cookie Mom for several years in a row. Tons of work and standing outside in all sorts of weather at grocery stores for 2 months' worth of weekends in a row to sell cookies. Bleh.

When I was in GS, we'd work like dogs to sell as many cookies as possible in order to go on ONE camping trip at the end of the school year...and that camping trip was just 1 overnight. ONE. The camping trip was a ton of fun. But all of the high pressure to sell sell sell? No thanks.

BSA will very likely lose membership from the LDS church members who will soon join their own organization's scouting groups. GS has lost membership as well for various reasons that I won't go into here.

The way I see it is now there's just 1 additional option for kids of both genders if they're interested in scouting. and if your kid isn't into scouting, that's fine, too. There are a plethora of other extracurricular fun activities to join and participate in.

Wow, my wife or I could have written this. I also state that I have no issue with anyone who enjoys Girl Scouts. My daughter is one, and has been since brownie times. (She's 15 now). I agree with all the statements you make above, and while I would normally have a major issue with an organization like the Boy Scouts allowing girls, as a parent that also has a 9 year old boy, currently a Cub Scout, I'm glad this is happening.

Maybe it's just our area, I'm sure different troops across the country are different, but honestly, the Boy Scouts feels like a true family organization. Each and every event our son attends is open to everyone from the parents to our daughter. We do everything together from camping to field trips. We do so many activities and outings there is no way we could attend them all. With the Girl Scouts, in our area, that is almost unheard of. To be frank, even as long as our daughter has been in it, there has never been that sense of comradery we have with the boys.

Another poster mentioned how this is actually being organized, from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts, and I feel even better after reading that. I've really felt for years there should be a more national\global scouting organization. Heck, even the military is more co-ed now.

 

[piccolopat]

My daughter's Brownie pack is going to a camp skills event this weekend and already has 2 camps plan for this year. They work on badges and program work at meeting and are encouraged to do interest badges on their own as well. Does Girl Scouts not have a program of things the girls need to complete before moving up to the next level?

Moving up levels is based on age, not achievement. I think in my DD's case, the problem is that the leaders had their own agenda. I don't know if the GSA organization has any requirements for how to run a troop but if they do it was either ignored or was inadequate. My brother was involved in the BSA for many years, both as a scout and then as a leader. The structure there seemed to be much better defined and focused on what scouts should be doing.

 

[Mizzoufan]

I know this know won't be popular but I hate this idea. I'd rather them start a new organization for girls and boys then add girls to Boys Scouts. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before girl scouts boys in. For me personally it important to keep the tradition alive then being political.

 

[CdnCarrie]

There were girls in my kids Cub Scouts a decade ago. USA is really behind on things.

 

[Geoff_M]

The article I read said that the troops will not be co-ed. There apparently will be separate troops for boys and girls, at least at the Cub Scouts level. Details on the higher levels aren't available yet.

Regarding Cub Scouts, that is not correct. Starting in 2018 there will be three types of Cub Scout Packs. The BSA is referring to them as:
1) Boy Cub Scout Packs (i.e. what we have now)
2) Family Cub Scout Packs (Co-ed Packs, with single-sex Dens)
3) Girl Cub Scout Packs

What form a Pack takes is up to each Pack's sponsoring organization. Here's the BSA Fact Sheet that covers this.

 

[Colleen27]

I honestly believe that if the Girl Scouts lose members to the Boy Scouts, they only have themselves to blame. I was a leader when the "Joyrneys" thing started. I often felt like I was assigning the girls in my troop a research assignment. Instead of learning how to do something, they were reading about other girls and women who did things. It was, in my opinion, the antithesis of what scouting should be about.

Another thing that I disliked was that the girls in the troop were all the same age. Having an older son in Boy Scouts, I really got to see the advantages of having mixed ages. The younger boys looked up to the older ones and learned so much from them, and the older scouts truly gained leadership skills as they taught the newer boys skills, set behavior standards, etc.

You said this so much better than I did. I know the Journeys idea was meant to be empowering, but I felt like it reinforced the "girls read, boys do" gender roles. While the boys are out tying knots and learning to start a campfire and identifying tracks in the woods, the girls are indoors reading about inspiring women and learning about careers.

And while the same-age thing didn't bother me at the time because it was all we really knew, after moving from Girl Scouts to 4H and from public school to private, I strongly believe we do kids a disservice by grouping so much of their lives that way. Mixed age groups seem to foster so much more growth and understanding, with the older kids helping the youngers and the younger kids learning from the olders. The older kids learn leadership (and in my experience, mind their own behavior better!) when they share their talents with younger kids, and the little ones listen better and put more effort into being self-reliant when working with older peers, rather than relying on the adults in the room to solve problems like they might in the classroom or at home. BSA, like 4H, recognizes this and deliberately sets up situations where older youth have an active role in teaching and leading younger members. GSA, not so much.

 

[Geoff_M]

Except that it isn't. The announcement said that while packs have the option of going co-ed (which sounds to me like code for "we're kicking the decision down to locals who mostly oppose change"), dens will either be all-boy or all-girl. I suspect that will make this a meaningless move on several levels, because there will undoubtedly be packs that decline the option of going co-ed (our local leadership has already indicated they will be among them and someone I know who is involved with a BSA camp has indicated they "aren't equipped" for hosting co-ed or female groups) and for those that do, it'll still take enough girls and leaders to form a den before they can actually join. It isn't like the one girl who would rather be doing what the boys are doing will just be able to sign up and join their den.

I don't believe for a second that this is only being done as some sort of publicity stunt while knowing that no actual change will take place. This reminds me of when it was announced that the BSA would allow women to be Boy Scout Troop leaders back in the 80's. The reaction in some circles is what we're hearing now regarding the next step to the BSA going full co-ed. As with female leaders, I'm sure that there won't be a large rush to make Packs co-ed. But some units will adopt the change... and over time I think it will become more and more the norm. Women boy scout leaders were once a novelty too after that change was adopted.

As for the "facilities" argument. Again, that "It won't work" protestation was raised with female Boy Scout leaders. However, over time each camp has development facilities to accommodate both males and females in terms of showers and bathrooms. Time slots may have to be implemented for the sharing of shower houses, but it can be managed. I've seen it done before with minimal issues. If what you predict is true, and there is not rush of girls that will join Packs, then there shouldn't be too much of a strain on the female facilities at camps.

Also, "kicking the decision down" has been used before when it comes to "sensitive" changes that the BSA has made. As I'm sure you know, each Cub Pack is "owned" by the sponsoring organization and is in fact operated as part of their larger program. So, any change that the BSA makes has the potential to "force" that change on the sponsoring organization against its will. This was also done with the decision to remove the prohibition against gay leaders. Though its critics weren't satisfied that the BSA didn't demand that all troops accept such leaders, they didn't opt to do so because such a move would have forced sponsors like the LDS church to accept gays as leaders of one of their youth programs. So they let it be a local decision for each troop. That prevented a full-scale exodus of LDS and other units sponsored by organizations that would have rejected the mandate.

 

[smiths02]

Regarding Cub Scouts, that is not correct. Starting in 2018 there will be three types of Cub Scout Packs. The BSA is referring to them as:
1) Boy Cub Scout Packs (i.e. what we have now)
2) Family Cub Scout Packs (Co-ed Packs, with single-sex Dens)
3) Girl Cub Scout Packs

What form a Pack takes is up to each Pack's sponsoring organization. Here's the BSA Fact Sheet that covers this.

I wonder if the poster you quoted just doesn't understand the structure of Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and that was the problem with clarification.
Cub Scouts are in Packs which are separated into Dens. All the dens I have seen are by age/grade and work on specific requirements (Tigers-1st grade, Wolves, Bears, Webelos I, Webelos II). In our experience, the den meets a few times a month-once a week depending. The Pack meets once a month (generally) as a whole group. The trips were a 3-4 a year and done as a Pack (generally a fall, spring, and then a few others sprinkled in). Summer camp was generally daycamp and was separated for the most part by rank (so by age).

Boy Scouts have Troops. The Troops are separated into Patrols. We generally have only whole troop meetings and camp outs (our Troop has something scheduled every month at least, camping wise). Our Troop is small, so the Patrols are not separated by age, but we did look at some Troops that do separate patrols by age.