The news broke on the International Day of the Girl – Boy Scouts of America will welcome girls!!
This news was not well-received overall. Here are the three trending stories I see on Google right now when I search “boy scouts,” one day after the announcement.
Source: Google, Oct. 12, 2017
The end of men? Really?
My daughter is 13 and has been wishing for years that she could be a boy scout. Our family has experience in both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts is one of very few things my daughter has encountered that she is unable to do just because she is a girl. She’s even exploring the topic for a big research project she is doing at school – “Why Can’t I Join Boy Scouts?”
There seems to be a lot of angry reaction and misunderstanding from people who sound like they don’t know much about Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or both.
Arguments and Responses
Here are a few of the comments I’ve seen about this in the last 24 hours:
Argument 1: Isn’t that what Girl Scouts is for?
This implies that the two organizations are the same, and have the same programs and goals. They don’t. They are completely different organizations that don’t work together.
Argument 2: Boy Scouts of America is trying to steal business from Girl Scouts of the USA
I doubt it. The girls who might join Boy Scouts probably aren’t going to join Girl Scouts, or, like my daughter, tried it and left. Boy Scouts might be trying to grow their bottom line, but it’s not a deliberate attempt to undercut Girl Scouts.
Argument 3: If Girl Scouts would just get better, we wouldn’t have to do this
Two responses to this one:
First, we’ve already tried “separate but equal” in this country, and it didn’t work. We can’t have “separate but equal.”
Second, in many ways, Girl Scouts already IS better. My work as a museum educator has compelled me to study and understand some of the badges and achievements for Cub Scouts, Brownies, and Juniors. As an educator (and especially as a STEM educator), I much prefer the format and organization of the Girl Scout achievements. They’re more open-ended and exploratory, invite creativity and differences, and provide authentic ways to explore the community. But they’re not the same as the Boy Scout activities, nor are they trying to be.
Argument 4: Boy Scouts already has programs for girls
Yes, Venturing. Boy Scouts already has Venturing. And STEM Scouts. These programs are great and co-ed. But they’re not the core of Boy Scouts. And they are pretty successful! BSA knows how to create successful co-ed programs. I count this argument in the PLUS column for this week’s news.
Argument 5: Those little sisters have always been welcome to tag along
Sometimes, yes, but they never got recognized the way their brothers did. Ask Sydney Ireland. This happened to be the way my daughter learned about Boy Scouts, by tagging along and watching her brother accumulate badges (and neato pocket knives) for ten years. But what about girls who don’t have a big brother to tag along with?
Argument 6: Kids want to be in groups with their own gender
LGBTQ questions aside (and not the issue here at all), BSA has already addressed this in their plan for Cub Scout troops. Packs (multi-grade-level) can be single-gender or co-ed, and will be made up of single-gender Dens. (In Boy Scouts, the older grades, a large multi-age Troop is made up of several smaller Patrols. BSA’s plan for adding girls to this level will be announced in 2018.) You know, this might even make that LGBTQ question a little easier, eh?
Argument 7: But, her Gold Award
Until this week, how many people who didn’t have direct experience with Senior Girl Scouts would have known what a Gold Award is? I didn’t until I was almost 40, and only because I asked who built a path at our school. Even though the two organizations are almost the same age, Eagle Scout has garnered higher levels of respect. Judge for yourself if the two achievements are equivalent: Gold Award and Eagle Rank.
Argument 8: Let’s have ONE organization and call it People Scouts
This was my thought years ago, but can you imagine? We can’t quite imagine having boys and girls go to the same meetings at the library or church classroom, or go hiking together, or serve the community together. Do you think it would be a simple thing to merge two 100-plus-year-old nonprofit organizations, each with budgets in the billions of dollars? Baby steps. (Recent annual reports here and here.) A few other organizations have formed to try this tactic (Adventure Scouts, Navigators USA, and others, but none has the history or reputation of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. It makes sense to bring these respected old organizations to 21st century kids.
Argument 9: What about shenanigans during campouts?
I’m not sure what kind of bubble this argument comes from. Many summer camps are co-ed. Church camps are co-ed. School trips are co-ed. Recess is co-ed. Boy Scouts already has Family Camps, which are also co-ed. It works. If you don’t trust your kid to uphold his morals when there are girls around, maybe Boy Scouts isn’t the organization for you.
This one came up a lot in the first hour after the news broke, in the comment feed on my local newspaper’s story. Do those people not have kids? Not trust anyone? Not know anything about scouting? I could only shake my head and stop reading.
Argument 10: The end of men
Tell that to all of the moms who are leading Cub Scout Packs and Boy Scout Troops all over the country. Without those women, boys all over the country would not have access to scouting at all. More than one-third of Scout volunteers are women.
Go ahead and read the opinion piece from the Washington Examiner. I don’t want to link to it, but it’s easy enough to find.
I asked my son, age 17 and a Life Scout (who has gotten too busy with other activities to finish his Eagle – which is fine) what he thought of this news. He doesn’t know anything about Girl Scouts, but he thought it would be okay. He didn’t see any reason that girls and boys can’t learn to fish or tie knots together, just like the young women and men at his school are learning to do calculus and perform music and build robots together. (In fact, they are doing such a good job of erasing gender boundaries that his school recently eliminated their Girls Who Code club completely. The girls in it all recognized that it was unnecessary and that there were plenty of other coding opportunities where they were comfortable and welcome.)
Implications for My Daughter
Will she actually join? I don’t know. She will turn 18 in 2022, three years after the proposed launch of the Eagle Scout program that includes girls. Boys start earning ranks toward Eagle at age 11 or so, and need up to 6-7 years to complete everything. This news comes at an exciting time for her, though, and I hope she at least thinks about it.
Would you let your daughter join Boy Scouts? (Or let your son join Girl Scouts, if that became an option?) Why or why not?