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A major shift from the Boy Scouts of America:
Irving, Texas – October 11, 2017 – Today, the Boy Scouts of America Board of Directors unanimously approved to welcome girls into its iconic Cub Scout program and to deliver a Scouting program for older girls that will enable them to advance and earn the highest rank of Eagle Scout. The historic decision comes after years of receiving requests from families and girls, the organization evaluated the results of numerous research efforts, gaining input from current members and leaders, as well as parents and girls who've never been involved in Scouting – to understand how to offer families an important additional choice in meeting the character development needs of all their children.
"This decision is true to the BSA's mission and core values outlined in the Scout Oath and Law. The values of Scouting – trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind, brave and reverent, for example – are important for both young men and women," said Michael Surbaugh, the BSA's Chief Scout Executive. "We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children. We strive to bring what our organization does best – developing character and leadership for young people – to as many families and youth as possible as we help shape the next generation of leaders."
[...] Starting in the 2018 program year, families can choose to sign up their sons and daughters for Cub Scouts. Existing packs may choose to establish a new girl pack, establish a pack that consists of girl dens and boy dens or remain an all-boy pack. Cub Scout dens will be single-gender — all boys or all girls. Using the same curriculum as the Boy Scouts program, the organization will also deliver a program for older girls, which will be announced in 2018 and projected to be available in 2019, that will enable them to earn the Eagle Scout rank. This unique approach allows the organization to maintain the integrity of the single gender model while also meeting the needs of today's families.
I'll admit it, I was a little surprised by the announcement. As a longtime member of the BSA and an Eagle Scout, I find this extremely interesting. I know some who are dead set against it, and others who are totally for it. My personal opinion is that it will be a good thing, both for the BSA and for the young men and women who become part of the organization.
The biggest loser in all of this will probably be the Girl Scouts. I can see their membership numbers dwindling rapidly if/when this takes off.
As a side note, Scouting has been co-ed in many countries for decades.
Both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts have seen decreasing membership in recent years, and both have been trying to find ways to increase their membership. In this context, they now seem to be butting heads:
The Boy Scouts will soon include girls, and not everyone's happy about it.
The 107-year-old organization announced Wednesday that younger girls will be allowed to join Cub Scouts and that older girls will be eligible to earn the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout.
[...] For months, Girl Scouts USA had a notion BSA would try to start recruiting girls. In August, Buzzfeed News obtained a strongly worded letter in which GSUSA President Kathy Hopinkah Hannan accused the BSA of courting girls to boost falling enrollment numbers.
From the letter:
We are confused as to why, rather than working to appeal to the 90 percent of boys who are not involved in BSA programs, you would choose to target girls.
What are your thoughts? Were you ever a boy scout, or a girl scout, or did they ever affect you in any way? And do you think the BSA should be praised for opening their doors to girls or should they be castigated for 'targeting' girls who would be better off staying with their own kind?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @01:35PM (1 child)
My daughter loved tagging along to cub scouts with my son. They learned to make fires, carve things, use a pocketknife, make birdhouses, first aid, build and race wooden cars, tie knots, and had epic games of tag and tug of war.
In Girl Scouts they colored, did workbooks, sold a shitton of cookies, and went to a jamboree once per year.
I participated in both with my children, and the former was more fun for me. The girl scout meetings felt like schoolwork, honestly.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 13 2017, @02:52PM
Confirmed. Four minor extensions:
AC's probably a rare SN female because our council didn't allow male participation other than very strictly isolated events. My wife did volunteer as a leader. Reportedly most of the female GS leaders spend most of their time doing cat fights with the other alpha females. Strangely enough the alpha males in scout leadership got along great, probably because we were over half ex-mil and that teaches you to work for a common goal or maybe its just another human biological difference between the sexes, or whatever. I just thought it was funny that the leadership men in boy scouts all become friends but the leadership in GS are like an adult parody of "mean girls" movie and they all hate each other. If my hypothesis is correct about ACs female-ness, therefore AC was probably in GS leadership which only permits women, then it would be interesting to confirm or deny the GS female leaders were catty and/or cattier than the general population.
I'd subjectively add that everything seemed more expensive for the girls but they seemed to raise more money selling cookies, which I thought was weird. So you sold 4x as much dollar value cookies as my son sold popcorn, but his boy scout two nights overnight swim test/camp is merely $20 donation toward food (teen boys can certainly eat $20 of food over two days especially out camping, so thats totally fair...) yet your four hour girl scout afternoon swim party at the council site is $75, something seems off here... There's a lot of money in GS and its not going to the girls but lots of it is obviously going somewhere. There's less money in BS and every penny, plus some, seems to go to the boys.
There were a lot of girl and parent entries in the pinewood derby some of which were pretty funny. The hello kitty car was extremely popular among the girls. The "buy girl scout cookies" advertising car with a real cookie tie strapped to the car. The "Frozen" movie theme car shaped like a sandal.
I'm convinced "be prepared" as a BS thing isn't so much to prepare for life, although that's nice, but because scoutmasters were tired of kids showing up forgetting stuff. GS show up unprepared all the time. She wore high heels to a couple mile nature hike? And some other girl wore flip flops? WTF? There's "BS screwed up" level which is still less messed up than "GS operating nominally" level and "GS screwed up" is like now we need SAR support, every freaking time. The medieval trope of maidens needing rescuing, its not just lazy novel writers, I think its like female genetic to lure in husbands or something. This ... trait or whatever... might be an interesting issue with "forcing" girls into boy scouts aside from the obvious stuff like sex parties in the tents and skinny dipping and stuff like that. You're going to have girls show up with only one hiking boot or forgot their hair curler or wtf at camp.