Of course, girls can join Boy Scouts now, and why wouldn't they?
The program for the older boys and girls will largely be divided along gender-lines, with single-sex units pursuing the same types of activities, earning the same array of merit badges and potentially having the same pathway to the coveted Eagle Scout award....The Girls Scouts, we're told, were "blindsided." How can they compete?
So far, more than 3,000 girls have joined roughly 170 Cub Scout packs participating in the first phase of the new policy, and the pace will intensify this summer under a nationwide multimedia recruitment campaign titled “Scout Me In.”
“Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls,” said Sylvia Acevedo, the Girl Scouts’ CEO. “We are, and will remain, the first choice for girls and parents who want to provide their girls opportunities to build new skills … and grow into happy, successful, civically engaged adults.”..."Civically engaged" seems like a euphemism for politics.
“If the best fit for your girl is the Girl Scouts, that’s fantastic,” [Surbaugh] said. “If it’s not them, it might be us.”
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145 comments:
Camp outs in the deep woods with gorls on your troop should be, ah, interesting.
Sad.
This better not screw with my ability to acquire Thin Mints®.
Now it sounds like a motorcycle club. (BSA motorcycles)
Or a shooting organization (BSA = Birmingham Small Arms)
Seriously, I understand the Boy Scouts now becoming the boy and girl scouts. I also understand that there might be a trademark issue with calling it "Boy and Girl Scouts" but that is what they are.
Why not just merge the two organizations? Or do girls still need their very own, no boys allowed organization?
If the Boy Scouts have to admit girls but the Girl Scouts don't have to admit boys on an equal basis, I call bullshit on both organizations.
Where is the Equal Rights Amendment when we need it?
Where are men's equal rights?
John Henry
How long before the calls for changing the standards that are "too hard" for girls? When will we hear that not enough leadership positions are held by girls? 25 years from now we won't have a scouting program as we now know it.
The Law of Unintended Consequences: feminism has resulted in the erosion of women-specific activities. Just the opposite of what Tirle IX intended.
What about us Transcouts?
Expect a decline in participation.
...change the name of the Boy Scouts program to Scouts BSA
What does the B stand for?
It's about 25 years since Peter Drucker called the Girl Scouts the best run nonprofit organization in the US.
He could not have anticipated the destruction of the culture that has followed.
If the Boy Scouts have to admit girls but the Girl Scouts don't have to admit boys on an equal basis,
Feminism has never been about equality - that's just the ruse for the rubes. It has always been about advantaging women by any means necessary. It's just become more obvious as equality became more clear but feminists respond by moving the goalposts.
Our Boy Scout camp had a canteen that was only open in the evening, where you were allowed to buy ( a limited amount of ) candy.
I suspect they will have to start selling condoms. Maybe they can get condoms in special packaging emblazoned with the scout motto.
Be Prepared
Boy scouts and girl scouts are very different. I have kids in both. Generalizing, boy scouts is god-oriented and conservative. Girl scouts is secular and progressive. I can see why conservative families would welcome the opportunity to put their girls in boy scouts. On the same token, I think girl scouts should open up to boys and attract more progressive families who are turned off by boy scouts.
I expect the institution to deteriorate rapidly. For example: the boys earned the 'Polar Bear' badge, which involved a couple of days camping at well below 32 degrees F.
Can you imagine the majority of girls doing that?
To get an Eagle Scout, there is generally a large amount of LABOR involved, such as creating a sidewalk for the elderly or creating a social volleyball court for a Rec Center.
Um...
Since these were required paths to progress but the girls won't like them (I notice it was MEADE doing the heavy lifting) they will want to change the organization to it's detriment.
And the Girl Scouts brought it on themselves. Their organization did 'safe' and 'non-controversial' stuff which bored the girls.
The problem isn't so much the girls as it is their mothers.
As this is the age of BS, BSA seems quite appropriate.
My son is currently in the Boy Scouts. My two older daughters tried the Girl Scouts but didn't really enjoy the program; I think they went to a handful of meetings before deciding they didn't want to continue. If they Boy Scouts would have been organized then like they are planning to now, they would have joined the Scouts BSA and loved it. I like the competition for the Girl Scouts.
I can't believe that nobody has linked to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoEVPtVk9nE
Tom Lehrer Be Prepared, written in the 1950's still relevant today. The lines
If you're looking for adventure of a
New and different kind,
And you come across a girl scout who is
Similarly inclined,
Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared.
Be prepared!
Seem particularly appropos with this thread in mind.
Anyway, full lyrics below.
Be prepared! That's the boy scout's marching song,
Be prepared! As through life you march along.
Be prepared to hold your liquor pretty well,
Don't write naughty words on walls if you can't spell.
Be prepared! To hide that pack of cigarettes,
Don't make book if you cannot cover bets.
Keep those reefers hidden where you're sure
That they will not be found
And be careful not to smoke them
When the scoutmaster's around
For he only will insist that it be shared.
Be prepared!
Be prepared! That's the boy scouts' solemn creed,
Be prepared! And be clean in word and deed.
Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice,
Unless you get a good percentage of her price.
Be prepared! And be careful not to do
Your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
If you're looking for adventure of a
New and different kind,
And you come across a girl scout who is
Similarly inclined,
Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared.
Be prepared!
(I still have the original 10" record)
John Henry
Why is this news? I guess because of the name change. But the decision of the BSA to include girls is old news, right?
Some context -- BSA already has the Explorers program which has been coed since 1971. Kids enter BSA at a younger age, and age-out faster than in Explorers. Most of the kids in an active scout troop are going to be between 11 and 14 years old -- preteens to early adolescents. Explorer units are intended to engage older kids through job skill development, mentoring, and community interaction and are targeted toward older teens and open to young adults up through college age.
Where the girl scouts are going to lose membership is to Cub Scouts. There, all the activities are heavily adult supervised and all the kids are pre-hormonal. Kids that age are doing fewer extracurricular school activities. Cub scout packs are small enough, 6 to 8 kids, that creating single-gender packs will be easier than creating single-gender boy scout troops. Any enterprising mom could probably take over a cub scout troop in a single afternoon.
Oddly enough, the Girl Scouts seem unthreatened by the membership threat from the 4-H Club which is co-ed and larger than the BSA and Girls Scouts combined. But then, the girls scouts are an utterly suburban organization.
This Eagle Scout (1980) thinks that there just aren't any more institutions where boys can go to learn to be men, and be with other boys and grow and learn without the feminization of being around girls and women. This is a terrible thing for a once-great organization. Boys learn to socialize in a male way by being around other boys, especially older boys, and that gestalt is ruined when females are added to the mix.
JohnGalt,
25 years? We already don't have "a scouting program as we know it".
As for the snark about girls being able to physically manage scouting, a primary focus on all Eagle projects isn't lifting heavy objects, it's organizing volunteers. It is a requirement for an Eagle project that the scout manage other scouts and volunteers.
No scouting merit badges require strongman capabilities to complete. Camping in subzero weather is hard, but it's no more a physical barrier to a determined girl than it is to a determined boy. Remember, we're talking 11 to 14 boys and many boys make Eagle by age 14 or 15.
“Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls,” said Sylvia Acevedo, the Girl Scouts’ CEO. “We are, and will remain, the first choice for girls and parents who want to provide their girls opportunities to build new skills … and grow into happy, successful, civically engaged adults.”...
No, sorry. 4-H is bigger.
As is the Boys and Girls Clubs of America -- named "Boys and Girls" since 1990.
I'm an Eagle Scout (1988). It appears the troops are still segregated by sex, so the boys, supposedly, can continue on as before. The trouble is, that will never be enough for some people. The question is not if troops will be integrated, but when.
I appreciate why some girls want to do what the Boy Scouts did, want to participate in those activities. The problem is that admitting girls, even for good reasons, means the end of the thing you had. This is inevitable and happens in every organization that does this.
As NC William said, sad. Just sad.
Little League stopped banning girls in 1974.
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts feels somewhat like what happened to YWCA and YMCA.
At one time the Y's were similar, but by the 1970s YWCA was becoming an increasingly political organization, strongly feminist and increasingly offering men (when they were permitted to participate at all) sharply reduced access for the same membership price ,as more activities within it became women-only (plus additional restrictions on what facilities men could use and when they could use them).
Whereas the YMCA became more family-oriented, and offered the same access and programs to women and girls as it offered to men and boys.
Today the YWCA's national website offers "YWCA IS ON A MISSION: eliminating racism, empowering women," and all the photos on its home page are of women and girls. Whereas the YMCA's national website offers "FOR ALL OF US the Y is there," and shows photos of adults and children of both sexes.
( https://www.ywca.org/ , http://www.ymca.net/ )
The two organizations were once roughly same overall size, but since then the YMCA has grown while YWCA is much smaller.
Perhaps Girl Scouts' executives are familiar with this, and fear that something similar will happen to Girl Scouts? GSA has never gone as far down this road as YWCA, but they surely have started down that path.
Aside from that, it is (of course) always parents who staff and drive the local programs, and with ever-more children raised by single mothers the feminization of Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA is certainly a real threat. But, it should be framed within the larger picture, the one in which fewer and fewer boys have resident fathers.
If this turns out badly it will probably become undeniably obvious if/when BSA embarks in an explicitly "toxic masculinity" direction, and becomes overt in trying to make the boys more like girls.
The Boy Scouts have always had a paramilitary purpose.
In some countries it is still used that way. That was so in the country in which I was a Boy Scout. I didn't join, I was drafted.
I suspect a back-to-basics emphasis, as something of a revolutionary (or counter-revolutionary) paramilitary organization would make it subversively popular. Something that a kid would have to hide from his parents, like joining the Crips.
The organization is still failing, due to the ongoing collapse of community. The recent emphasis on pleasing the top-level funders and the Powers-that-be on their cultural issues has improved nothing, as that stuff predictably turns off the boys and parents still likely to be interested.
I had no idea 4 h was so large.
Girl Scouts will be biggest hit.
Lots of scout alternatives will grow...
When my wife was a girl scout troop co-leader, her co-leader's husband and I were asked to come along on overnight camping trips to a nearby Southern California girls scout camp for safety's sake. However, girl scout rules prohibited the us dads from ever being alone with any of the scouts, including our own daughters, also apparently for safety's sake. Of course, that was almost 40 years ago, long before genderless bathrooms and changing facilities and the like. Still, I'm not sure how this whole thing will work with respect to liability, particularly in the leadership and chaperone roles. It seems almost inevitable that men's leadership roles will be curtailed or become redundant because the umbrella scouting organizations are never going to accept men leaders for girls. Women leading boys will be fine, however, so scouting BSA will likely become more like a coed cub scouts den with women role models (den mothers) for both girls and boys. Doesn't sound like an improvement for the scouts nor does it seem compatible with providing male role models for young boys. When you get right down to it, boy scouts has always been about preparing young men for adulthood, including teaching them skills every man should have. It's hard to see how that continues without gender segregation.
I do not think the Boy Scouts have much of a choice at the moment. By caving to the progressives who hate them, they drove off a good deal of their conservative membership. They have to replace that membership somehow. If it has to kill the Girl Scouts to do it, well, welcome to Thunderdome. I'm sure there is a merit badge for it.
Modern Boy Scouting is missing a few merit badges, that in the good old Baden-Powell tradition should be oriented towards modern warfare.
And in this case, urban combat, guerrilla war in urban environments, secure communications, secure organization, surveillance, etc. that should be, note, useful to the Crips.
In fact, the best true-to-Baden-Powell approach in the modern world would be to turn the Boy Scouts into a virtuous sort of MS-13.
Boy Scouts has a terrible record of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. The Girl Scouts have always accepted both scouts and leaders without such discrimination.
The difference is critical. The Boy Scouts have lost sponsorship by public and civic groups because of such discrimination. I myself helped mount a successful effort to have the Boy Scouts tossed out of an annual charity solicitation by Goodwill in Austin on that basis, and of course discriminatory organizations have no right to claim support by government actors, such as police and fire departments, and others offering public accommodations because of the clear rules of non-discrimination.
Their must be lots of free-thinking parents who don't want their girls participating in religious discrimination or morally distasteful bias. Thank god the numbers of non-believers are growing more rapidly than religious superstition.
Baden-Powells original idea was, after all, to teach urban British boys the fieldcraft needed to fight the Boers on the veldt. As usual a military professional oriented training to fight his last war.
What would a modern Badel-Powell need to teach?
When my dad was in boy scouts in the 1940s most camping trips included a pack animal.
Pack animal participation in Boy Scouts is also declining, jacks, jennies and mules.
@jimbino -- please elaborate. What year was your purge and what was the basis?
Sixty years ago (note date!) Tom Lehrer was prescient.
You might what to replace your "has" with "had"
"Explorer units are intended to engage older kids through job skill development, mentoring, and community interaction "
I became an Eagle Scout in 1965 then advanced to the Explorer Post and was there until 1968 or 69. That is not what our Post did. All the guys in it were Eagle Scouts with extensive camping and hiking experience from our troop. Our leader was a former Army Ranger. Our total reason for existence was hiking in remote areas in the mountains of GA, TN, and NC, with our leader teaching us many of the skills he had learned in the Army. In the summer we would go off for 7-10 days into the mountains, giving the parents who dropped us off on the side of a highway the day, time, and location to pick us up, which was 50-70 miles away. Everything we needed was on our backs. We saw very few people unless it was a through hiker on the AT. It was rough and challenging but I have more fond memories of those weeks than any in my teen years. The rest of the year we had once/month weekend trips and we went in all kinds of weather - rain, snow - even camping out one weekend when lows were near 0F. We all loved it. There was no community service of any kind.
It seems that as we integrate girls into Scouts and also JROTC the programs change dramatically, to the benefit of the girls and the detriment of the boys. I didn't know any girl at the time who would have succeeded in our Post. I was also in Army JROTC at high school at the same time, it was all male, and the two programs actually complemented each other, at least for me. Emphasis was on drill; handling an M-1; marksmanship, with .22 cal bolt action rifles, not pellet guns; military organization; military justice; first aid; map reading; etc. Now I see in the paper this week one of the local Navy JRTOC chapters getting a unit citation from the Navy and featuring all their community service hours as one of the primary reasons. Again, we had no such community service hours. We were learning the basics of being a soldier and getting a leg up on enlistment or going to college in ROTC and receiving a commission.
I don't see much good from these changes for boys. I think it can help girls a lot. But I don't know if there is anywhere today boys can get the experience in Scouts/Explorers and JROTC that I got. I think our society will be worse off because of it.
I thought preteens of different sexes had different interests, but that's probably just a 20th century prejudice on my part. Many young girls are into Grand Theft Auto and play at an advanced level. There's no reason why they can't win as many merit badges for computer gaming skills as boys.
Is it simply impossible to say no. No. No we won't let girls into the Boy Scouts. What is happening, has happened, to us is irreversible. The slow slide of ten or fifteen years ago, when it was possible to read Gibbon and nod, has become an avalanche that is gathering bits of the culture as it builds momentum rollicking to the bottom, all the way to the bottom. What took a couple of hundred years to finish off the Roman Empire will be done here in fifty.
TL;DR: The Boy Scouts decided to go with the flow.
Wonderful jimbino.
Can I assume you are joking?
Why would boys want to join such a thing? Civic organizations? Where is the mystery of induction into a warrior-band? Where is the romance of exclusivity? Of danger? Of esprit de corps?
Civic organizations - hugely exciting I'm sure.
My son plays hockey in the fall and winter and baseball in the spring and summer.
For better or worse, youth sports over the last 25 years has become more highly organized and monetized. Boys who play sports have no time for scouts. If the more athletic boys aren’t joining scouts, who are they getting?
Also, girls youth sports are starting to mirror boys as far as length of season and competitiveness at a younger age.
The Scouts served a purpose for a long time but things have changed. No doubt it’s still a valuable organization but the numbers have been dwindling. And the best recruits are busy with sports.
@MountainMan -- Your experience sounds sort of like the BSA's High Adventure program. I haven't actually seen a really successful Explorer group in action because the local one is so small -- unlike the troop which is large and active.
At the point that you have a group of highly motivated, outdoor-oriented young adults, you don't really need an organization to tell them what to do, do you?
This fight between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts is about money. There are fewer dues paying members.
The Head of the Boy Scouts makes over $1 million a year. The Head of the Girl Scouts make $400k a year. Then there are the salaries of all the others.
Non-Profits are Big Business.
As I said, these organizations are on their way out. They just don’t have much to offer the customers any more. A local group can form a 501 organization for kids interesting in outdoor activities who aren’t in to sports. No need for a national group to pay high salaries of Executives.
"Of course, girls can join Boy Scouts now, and why wouldn't they?"
I admire both groups tremendously. I was a brownie and girl scout through 8th grade. My husband was in scouting through high school. We are big supporters.
Would I be ok with my girl joining? I would be fine if her involvement was limited to local troop meetings. I would not be ok with hiking, camping, caving trips after 2nd or 3rd grade UNLESS there were a tremendous number of girls who joined, enough to bring the number of boys/girls on overnights to equal numbers. And even then, I would be cautious.
Years ago my troop leaders made a mistake and planned for us to go on a caving trip on the wrong weekend. Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops alternated off. We were the only Girl Scout troop out of, I dunno, 100 or more boys. We were 6th or 7th grade. Nothing too much happened, that I know about, aside from some boys moon-ing. Mostly it was a lot of pubescent male attention. It was not a good environment.
Now, there was another canoe trip that was different, in northern Wisconsin. We came upon a campsite with a bunch of other boy and girl scouts were set up. The genders were about equal. A black bear came into the site. One of the boy scout troops gallantly traded their larger tents for our pup tents. The environment on this site was fine, and I would not be worried with appropriate adult supervision.
And yet, I wouldn't want to risk the first environment with my daughter.
Boys might as well learn early that chicks spoil everything.
Here is a list of United Way groups who have withdrawn funding of the Boy Scouts. http://www.scoutingforall.org/data/layer02/wycd/unitedway2.html
A Web search on Boy Scout Discrimination will bring up several lawsuits against the BSA for discriminating against disabled Scouts and a court in Britain that fined the Boy Scouts for such.
Expect more such action against the Scouts if they can't reform. Is that good enough reason, Ann, why a girl would be well advised not to join the Scouts?
@Henry: Here is the declaration of the Austin United Way tossing out the Boy Scouts:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2003-11-14/186482/
Would I be ok with my girl joining? I would be fine if her involvement was limited to local troop meetings. I would not be ok with hiking, camping, caving trips after 2nd or 3rd grade UNLESS there were a tremendous number of girls who joined, enough to bring the number of boys/girls on overnights to equal numbers. And even then, I would be cautious.
This is what I am talking about.
This mom would be hyper interested in what is happening to Gretchen where when her boys are concerned, she barely slows down when she drops them off because 'it's boys being boys, right?' and now she is free for margaritas and a pedi for the weekend!
And since Gretchen, being forced by Mommie Dearest, would not be able to be a full participant, the boys will be 'force curtailed' because 'equality'.
Except it isn't what Gretchen wants, it isn't what Jimmy wants...it is what Mom is forcing the organization to do.
Moms made the Girl Scouts suck and now they are aiming at the Boy Scouts.
One gets the idea that the whole purpose of the girl scouts is to sell cookies so that the leadership can make their huge salaries. The door-to-door selling of cookies by girl scouts who live on your block is almost passé. Now they have email solicitations to relatives to purchase the cookies that use the name of the relative with a link to the girl scouts website. The email states that "Mary" will be informed of how many boxes you purchase. If you do not purchase it immediately you get a follow up email indicating that you are letting your poor granddaughter (in my case) down because she is not meeting her “goal” of x number of boxes. It makes you wonder what they will do to her if she does not meet her quota.
Jimbino is right, such "reforms" are necessary for such an organization as the Scouts (either flavor) to exist within modern politico-bureaucratic systems. Of course, such reforms also entirely negate the purpose of the thing, which was and is opposed to the stultifying effects of modern civilization.
Baden-Powell wanted to make urban British boys destined for the dark satanic mills into warriors able to compete with the natives of the wilderness.
You cannot make warriors out of proto-bureaucratic drones unless you take them out of the sphere of influence of the drones.
The only proper way for such a movement to exist in the modern world is underground, or semi-underground, with a revolutionary, subversive ideology.
And jimbino...you are an asshole. You are the Fat Chick, knowing you aren't going to get laid at the club tonight, makes sure none of your friends hooks up either in the name of 'Progressivism'.
If we are destroying each other's toys, take a long look at Planned Parenthood.
Just saying.
It is a good thing they are changing the name. It's not the Boy Scouts anymore. It will be gone in twenty years.
A new organization needs to be started that will serve the traditional values that the Scouts used to embody.
The multimillion dollar settlements due to gay Scout leaders molesting helpless young Scouts will lead to them to sell all of their property.
I'm thinking that a group as scandal prone as the United Way probably needs some IRS scrutiny.
And women, especially mothers, for all their organizing skills, absolutely don't belong in this sort of thing at all.
The point is explicitly to make boys dangerous.
"Of course, girls can join Boy Scouts now, and why wouldn't they?"
Well, one reason is that they have not joined Explorer Scouts or Venture Scouts in any great numbers. Advancement to Eagle (Which was not offered to Girls in Explorers or Ventures)is all well and good, but the main draw for Scouts is the outdoor activities. Girls 10-14 (below the age of Ventures/Explorers) don't seem to go in for rustic camping so much. Some do, but most don't, and there are other venues that compete for those who do.
Nor does the Advancement to Eagle seem to be such a big draw. There is already a very similar award available through Girl Scouts. Not many girls do it.
Finally, and most importantly, starting ANY new troop requires a strong long-term commitment. Scoutmasters, assistant Scoutmasters, Committee Chairs, treasurers, Secretaries -- All need to be recruited and trained. Then there is recruiting a critical mass of girls and building the troop. Then there is planning campouts and other activities. Basically, to start a new successful troop, you will need a group of at least ten families who are willing to make a commitment of 5-10 years, working countless hours, who are ok working with each other (Group politics plays a BIG role in the success or failure of a troop).
And doing a lot of camping. Yeah, maybe you like to go camping. Do you like to go camping six times a year, and then going to summer camp for more camping? For five years? Do you like going camping with OTHER people's children?
My take: Girls in Scouting BSA troops will work to the degree that parents are willing to make it work, which is not very much, because if parents wanted to make girl troops work, they would have made Girl Scouts work. Or they would have made Explorers work. Or they would have made Venture Scouts work. And some have, but most haven't. Flash in the pan.
I miss the old days.
We want to participate in your unique activity in a way that will change its uniqueness entirely.
Denying us the right to join your unique activity violates equal something or another.
And the fact that it will be changed from the thing we wished to join will not be mentioned, going forward.
And women, especially mothers, for all their organizing skills, absolutely don't belong in this sort of thing at all.
Drucker, in his book, "Managing the Non-Profit Organization," credited the Girl Scouts with managing the transition from the earlier era when stay at home mothers needed something to do, to the era when working women needed "quality time" with their daughters.
He thought that this showed considerable talent in managing change.
I doubt he had any idea of what society is like now. Motherhood is considered a burden by many, especially on the left.
I wonder what Drucker would have to say about modern American corporate management.
Nothing good I think.
FIDO,
Sounds like you enjoy dropping your kids off and getting pedicures and alcohol. This might be you idea of fun but I don't drink and I've never experienced a, as you put it, "pedi."
What makes you think I would sign up my boy for the Girl Scouts? Or my girl for the boy scouts, when I clearly wrote it was a BAD IDEA.
To be clear, I do not think the Boy Scouts should integrate genders. That was my point, which you do not seem to have understood. I admire scouting tremendously. Were you in scouting? Are you an Eagle Scout?
Parents get their kids involved with scouting when young. The question is not: Why wouldn't a girl join? The question is: Would a parent sign a girl up for Cub Scouts/ Boy scouts? Would I sign my boy up for Brownies/ Girl scouts?
As a parent, my answer is: No, I would not.
Althouse asked, why not integrate the genders? Why wouldn't a girl join? There are differences between girls and boys, and if we're talking about throwing a couple of girls into an boy scout jamboree....would you be comfortable with your daughter in that environment?
The troop leaders cannot be everywhere at once. Camping, hiking, caving -- it's a huge part of scouting. Integrated gender scouting is not a good idea. Pubescent overnights in the woods with limited chaperones is not something many parents would support.
John Henry said...
Now it sounds like a motorcycle club. (BSA motorcycles)
Or a shooting organization (BSA = Birmingham Small Arms)
Those are the same BSA. I had a '64(?) "scrambler".
jimbino is the perfect example of the asshole atheist.
The People's Scouts.
All youth are allowed to join.
That which is allowed is mandated.
That which is not specifically allowed is banned.
The Law of Unintended Consequences: feminism has resulted in the erosion of women-specific activities. Just the opposite of what Tirle IX intended.
Bullshit. Title IX has greatly increased the number of women-specific activities. It's men specific activities that have been destroyed.
However the whole trans phenomena is eroding women specific activities by allowing men to proclaim themselves as women.
It seems to me the pro-integration push is being driven by people who never had their kids in scouting and/or don't understand gender dynamics.
Or, it's being driven by some people in the Boy Scouts who are desperate for membership.
There are differences between girls and boys,
Heresy!
@Henry: Don't know much about High Adventure program since I am long removed from Scouting.
As far as creating motivated young adults, you are correct. About half the guys in the Post went to college with me and we kept it up for a while. One guy had family friends who had a big lodge in Gatlinburg for rent and while everyone else on spring break was off to the beach we went up into the snow-covered peaks of the mountains on day hikes that were just loads of fun; freezing cold, but fun. We had an on-campus outdoor rec program and we all got trained in white water canoeing and rafting, so we left hiking and switched to that. We then would check out equipment and go on the North GA rivers on the weekends, especially the Chattooga, where Deliverance was filmed. It was more fun than hiking and significantly more dangerous, too. Regret that after I got married and had a family I got away from all that and today am too old for it. But it was great for building character and confidence and I wouldn't have traded those days for anything. And it all started with the Boy Scouts.
I was a Boy Scout and later Explorer many years ago. Churches were big sponsors of scout troops and there were religious elements (being reverent, for one) of scouting. Known homosexuals were prohibited from being scoutmasters because some feared the boys would be molested, so Scouting was sued. When some boys were molested, Scouting was sued. They were in a lose-lose situation.
mccullough said...
My son plays hockey in the fall and winter and baseball in the spring and summer.
For better or worse, youth sports over the last 25 years has become more highly organized and monetized. Boys who play sports have no time for scouts. If the more athletic boys aren’t joining scouts, who are they getting?
One of my coworkers has a son who is an Eagle Scout and who works for one of the regional scouting offices. My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports. His son played high school football and many other scouts in his troop were athletes but they were more the exception rather than the rule.
My coworker told me about the plan to integrate girls into the boy scouts months before it made the news. The single biggest reason was that parents who had both boys and girls were looking for activities they could participate in together. There were also a lot of girls who wanted to do the kinds of activities that the boy scouts were doing (primarily camping and hiking) instead of being pimped out to sell cookies. There are a lot of parents of girls who don't like how liberal the Girl Scouts have become and are looking for an alternative. The Boy Scouts are doing this as a matter of survival. Their enrollment has been declining for a long time, probably in large part because of the number of youth sports opportunities out there.
Food on camping trips might be better with girls taking care of it.
@Jimbino. 2003. Thank you.
You might want to update your high horse.
We continue to destroy ourselves..
Caldwell,
In the 60s I aspired to a 441 Victor. Single cylinder
I wound up with a bultaco Pursang.
I think I was better off. I loved that bike.
John Henry
"Civically engaged" seems like a euphemism for politics.
You have no idea.
Here is the first post currently on the Girl Scouts USA Twitter account, a desperate plea:
There's no contest. Girl Scouts is the BEST organization to offer girls unparalleled opportunities to learn 21st-century skills and empower themselves with the experiences they need to succeed in life.
Here is the third post currently on the Girl Scouts USA Twitter account, featuring Joe Biden's wife:
.@DrBiden is a prominent advocate for the rights and welfare of women and girls —and she’s the keynote speaker at the #GIRLagenda event on May 14! Don't miss the livestream
The desperation and the cause of the desperation withing three social media posts.
Anohter wedge issue to fuck with the churches who sponsor them.
"The Boy Scouts are doing this as a matter of survival. Their enrollment has been declining for a long time, probably in large part because of the number of youth sports opportunities out there."
Yeah, I thought membership worries must be what was driving the gender integration. I think there are other solutions if the Scouts get creative about ways to attract more male membership.
"One of my coworkers has a son who is an Eagle Scout and who works for one of the regional scouting offices. My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports."
This surprises me, but maybe things have changed. The Eagle Scouts I know/knew were extremely athletic. Hiking for days, mountain climbing, spelunking.
Girls Scouts:
Some groups may do nothing but sell cookies. If so, the local troop had poor leadership. We went on multi-day canoe trips, canoeing, camping, learned how to build fires, learned how to purify water. It was character building.
We were less athletic then the boy scouts -- which is OK!! As I wrote, boys and girls are different. We did other stuff like attended dance festivals, learned how to Scottish country dance, attended veterans celebrations, charity and volunteer work.
I know people volunteering for the girl scouts and Girl Guides. They aren't just selling cookies. Camping, swimming, horseback riding...
It's not necessary that EVERY activity for kids be gender integrated.
One winter trip we were in a lodge. I remember making fruit pastries we cooked in a open fire in these cast metal containers. They were good.
Scouting was a good childhood experience. It would be sad if it disappeared or fundamentally changed.
Institutions play important roles in our lives. It worries me how people can get so caught up in criticizing a small part of them they are willing to burn it all down. It's not only Scouting that has been picked on to the point that the Boy Scouts are desperate for membership.
It's churches, Scouting, fraternal groups, sororities, Rotary, charity & volunteer groups.
It's easy to criticize them, it's easy to tear them down or neglect these institutions. Not so easy to replace their role in society.
jimbino said...
of course discriminatory organizations have no right to claim support by government actors, such as police and fire departments, and others offering public accommodations because of the clear rules of non-discrimination.
And yet the organizations cited, police and fire departments, are overwhelmingly likely to be discriminatory organizations as is essentially every institution celebrated by those who criticize scouts on that basis.
www
My apologies. What I was addressing was the central premise of your point: that until the Boy Scouts and their activities were substantially modified, you would not allow your daughters to join because, being honest, we are more concerned about women safety than male safety.
My son was an avid Boy Scout and I've seen dedicated Scout Mothers (a few) and the Soccer Mom crowd who drop them off for their meets and, when it comes time to drop the boys off for camping, makes sure they are packed, given a kiss...and forgotten until pick up time.
No questions of micro management. Boys can't be raped and if boys pick on and abuse one another, that's a boy thing.
That is not a GIRL thing. As you said, a bad environment for 'girls to be girls'.
I somehow got the mistaken impression that you were FOR integration but 'we need to make some changes here, boys.'
I don't want those changes but no one asked for my vote.
Instead we have assholes like jimbibo who happily sue about quadriplegics aren't allowed to mountain climb in the scouts, because America OWES equal experiences to everyone.
Which says nothing about his love of crips and everything about his hatred of scouts.
Food on camping trips might be better with girls taking care of it.
One might think so...if they were girls from 20 years ago before microwaves and moms training daughters to cook.
WWW's troop seems like a good one. Not sure where she is from.
In OUR troop, the girls got to make crafts...and crafts...and more crafts...and sell cookies...
One day, I stopped by with a bunch of camping gear that the girls had never seen, would never be allowed to use, and had a lot of eager questions.
The moms told my wife that I was the first dad to show ANY interest in the troop...but I think there is a lot of self protection in that stance because moms hate strange men around their little darlings because 'fake rape culture'.
I, in contrast, am an idiot, so I never considered this.
I'm actually glad the Boy Scouts are doing this, so long as the girls and boys are pretty much kept separate (in cub scouts, it sounds like they won't be, but it's not as important there) Both boys and girls need segregated activities that are appropriate for them.
I'm would be much happier to have my daughter in the BSA than in the Girl Scouts, which is basically a feminist indoctrination group. The Girl Scouts are pissed off by this BSA move because there will be a larger section of girls that are not brainwashed by their abortion cult than there otherwise would be as the BSA is still religious and conservative. Also, it cuts into their cookie sales.
Girls in the Boy Scouts? They better start designing the "How to split the check" merit badge...
The Boy Scouts in our troop learn to cook, and cook well. We have patrol cooking contests, and the first class cooking skills cover a wide range of skills, including foil cooking and dutch oven cooking. I would match our cooking skills with pretty much any Girl Scout troop.
I forget... which party's national convention booed the Boy Scouts who were carrying in the US flag?
Next up: Banning of apple pie, and hot dogs.
Forget Tom Lehrer, Homer & Jethro had the real story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkAGY6W1-38
In nineteen and fifty-nine we took a little hike
With our scout master down to Lake Oneeganite
We took a little pizza and we took some saurkrauts
And we marched along together till we heard the girl scouts
It's easy to criticize them, it's easy to tear them down or neglect these institutions. Not so easy to replace their role in society.
My son was a Boy Scout. My daughter is a Girl Scout, with my wife as the leader. The material provided to local chapters by the national orgs is quite different. The Boys Scouts focus on learning physical skills, tools, knives, fire, camping. The Girl Scouts is almost completely political advocacy.
That's the national material. My wife doesn't use any of it for her troop. There is very little support and cooperation among various the Girl Scout troops. Each is on its own, so camping is more difficult. (Harder to get the required number of certified leaders.)
Check out the Girl Scout Advocacy Network. They've been sending us emails. Completely political. The locals have dedicated moms doing their best, but the national org is completely taken over by partisans.
O’Sullivan’s First Law, named for John O’Sullivan, former editor of National Review and speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher:
Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.
Careful, Boys.
I was a Cub Scout for a very short time. Our first project was to make dusters out of a coat hanger and yarn. Having 3 sisters and no brothers I wasn't interested in being forced to do more girl things. I refused to go back.
"I myself helped mount a successful effort to have the Boy Scouts tossed out of an annual charity solicitation by Goodwill in Austin on that basis"
And you've been sniffing your own farts ever since, haven't you, you self-important douche.
My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports."
Horse-pucky. I've known several scouts, including my Eagle Scout step-grandson, who are mountain rescue volunteers and expert climbers. You don't have to play football or basketball to be athletic.
When will we hear that not enough leadership positions are held by girls? 25 years from now we won't have a scouting program as we now know it.
Much sooner than that, I fear. Just consider the Scout's Oath and the Scouts Law. What could be more un-PC? From this Life Scout's memory (no peeking):
The Oath: On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my Country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
The Law: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
It seems to me that all of those things mitigate against what is taught and encouraged by "progressive" culture, and therefore must be negated by dilution of what could be called Boy Scout culture. Consider for a moment the contempt Scouting has among the elites. In the very first lecture given by my first semester freshman year history professor, the creep described the Boy Scouts as a paramilitary organization. I was dumbfounded. Either this alleged scholar didn't know what paramilitary meant or he was deliberately slandering a praiseworthy organization that aims to and largely succeeds at its goal of forging exemplary citizens. I dropped the course like a hot potato. When my faculty advisor learned of my intent he argued that I should remain in the class and challenge the instructor. I replied that bandying words with a fool is counterproductive (or words to that effect) and there were other electives that were more attractive.
Also, consider the context of remarks containing allusions to Scouting like "He's a Boy Scout," they are not intended as compliments. Those characterisations imply ridgity and naïveté. It's what an old jaded hand says to his fellows about a newcomer who is disinclined to bend the rules in favor of some preferred class or long-established yet technically shady procedure. Cheap Hollywood dialogue is full of such insulting references. The "Boy Scout" is the often the straightshooting rookie cop who get paid in his own blood for his scupples. We've all seen it time and again.
A word on my scouting years, I didn't make Eagle though I earned 34 merit badges, the Mile Swim award, the Order of the Arrow, and numerous other distinction. I failed the Eagle rank because I never earned the Personal Fitness badge. This was because I feared and loathed my middle school health and fitness instructor. At the time I could not articulate my trepidations to my parents or Scout Master when they admonished me regarding the Eagle rank which I qualified for in every detail except that one. Looking back I am convinced that hated teacher was a closeted pedophile, as were many such men until recent years introduced psychological screening aimed at the exclusion of such perverts from that teaching post.
This is what created Fight Clubs.
Yes, they do exist.
That's all I'll say about that.
First and second rules of FC oblige me to silence.
I am Roughcoat's wild Id.
Browndog said...
I was a Cub Scout for a very short time. Our first project was to make dusters out of a coat hanger and yarn.
That's sounds like a "Pussywillow" activity. Did you do what Donny Don't does?
I failed to make Boy Scout "Tenderfoot" because I cooked a potato but wouldn't eat it, and the book didn't say anything about eating anything, just cooking, so that was an early lesson in power-mad bureaucrats and their arbitrary, capricious and starchy tuberousity.
The Boy Scouts are allowing girls and changing their name.
This is officially the end of the Boy Scouts, yet few seem to want to acknowledge it.
One winter trip we were in a lodge. I remember making fruit pastries we cooked in a open fire in these cast metal containers. They were good.
Pudgie pies?
We bought that and use it in our fire pit.
When our daughter was younger we even used the fireplace.
The BSA used to be my charity of choice.
Used to be.
Expect a decline in participation.
Yep. Same thing happened when the local Elks chapter voted to allow women.
Instead of increasing their ranks, membership dropped 50 percent. Overnight.
It's on fumes now.
Their must be lots of free-thinking parents who don't want their girls participating in religious discrimination or morally distasteful bias. Thank god the numbers of non-believers are growing more rapidly than religious superstition. - jimbino
You wouldn't know free-thinking if it hit you upside your head. Your post proves it.
The war on boys continues.
The Boy Scouts wearing pink pussy hats in a parade is a leftist wet dream.
Food on camping trips might be better with girls taking care of it.
There will be more of it for the boys. Rations won't be determined by gender, but the girls won't eat as much and will give the extra food to the boys. Fat boys is another unintended consequence.
buwaya,
"Wonderful jimbino. Can I assume you are joking?"
Ah, you're still kind of new here.
And so, one less place for boys to go and learn how to become men.
"I expect the institution to deteriorate rapidly. For example: the boys earned the 'Polar Bear' badge, which involved a couple of days camping at well below 32 degrees F"
FIDO,
The guidelines for that are for Scouts who stay outside for 24 hours or more when the temperature falls below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. We hardly notice 32 degrees. And, it's called the "Zero Hero," or at least that's what our Council calls it.
Hope some new organization will emerge to do for boys what scouting used to.
Next they'll be wearing pussy hats.
Boy Scouts has a terrible record of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. The Girl Scouts have always accepted both scouts and leaders without such discrimination.
Maybe that's why everyone wants to join the better club, and nobody cares about the club that offers little more than the chance to push politics and cookies for the gratification of the grownups & their agenda.
I was a Camp Fire Girl as a child precisely because I didn't enjoy Girl Scouts. I wanted more camping, more activities, more Boy Scout like stuff. I would have liked a Pine Wood Derby style event. I didn't want to be a Boy Scout - I do not share the fantasy of the genderless world - I just wanted the organizations for girls to offer better stuff. Anyway, Camp Fire went coed years ago. Where is it now? I don't know.
Covetous, catty, jealous girls want to take what they haven't built or earned, precisely because building or earning something is harder than taking it. Feminism in a nutshell.
I joined the Boy Scouts at age 11, just about the right age to practice to earn the Merit Badge in masturbation. I imagine some things will have to be different now at the Boy Scouts. They will just need to adapt.
>>I was a Camp Fire Girl as a child
Great.... now I've got that "Sing around the camp fire" jingle from their ads stuck in my head...
:)
jimbino wrote: I joined the Boy Scouts at age 11, just about the right age to practice to earn the Merit Badge in masturbation.
Even now your preferred sexual activity, we presume.
Or maybe it's your only available outlet, shall we say?
Sex integration. Perhaps they hope to influence gender (i.e. mental and physical traits) development. They are already inclusive of transgender/homosexual boys and men, right?
"I joined the Boy Scouts at age 11, just about the right age to practice to earn the Merit Badge in masturbation. I imagine some things will have to be different now at the Boy Scouts. They will just need to adapt."
True, they will need to adapt.
Masturbation is not a high-priority matter when training for urban guerrilla warfare.
Has there been a huge push by girls to be admitted to the Boy Scouts? I was a senior Girl Scout leader for years, and my troop never wanted to join the Boys Scouts. Enter competitions against them and whoop their asses, yes, but not be in their troops. We often came home from camping competitions with the prize. We won the trophy at the Freezerie 3 years in a row. We decided to drop it for awhile to give the boys a chance to win. The one thing I noticed sharing time and space with the Boy Scouts is the Girl Scouts have a more flexible program. If the troop has members who want to do more traditional feminine things, then that's what the troop does. If the girls want to hike the Appalachian Trail, then that's what the troop does. There's already a major award in the Girl Scouts that takes years to earn. They don't need to be Eagle Scouts. Absent a huge demand by girls to be Boy Scouts, I'm guessing this is a move by BSUSA to drum up membership. If they can offer something that appeals to girls, more power to them, but they don't get to bitch about letting women in changing them. It's BSUSA's choice.
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and obey the scout law.
"One day, I stopped by with a bunch of camping gear that the girls had never seen, would never be allowed to use, and had a lot of eager questions."
That's incredibly sad.
Crafts? No camping? political messaging?? What? What has happened?
We did some crafts as elementary school students in our weekly meetings, but don't remember much of it. Mostly I remember the camping trips.
"WWW's troop seems like a good one. Not sure where she is from."
My kids aren't old enough for scouting. Kids of my friends are in the Girl Guides.
I was a kid in this troop living in the midwest. Our leaders 5th -8th grade were these four twenty-something young women -- two sisters and two friends. They took us cave spelunking, camping, canoeing, horseback riding.
I remember a overnight competition with other troops where we competed on skills - like how fast could we build a fire? One camping trip it rained and our tents leaked big time, another time camped in the snow, unintentionally, with an early snowstorm. For one trip we camped at the Indiana Sand Dunes. but the troop leaders were looking for other people to take over when I got to 8th grade. Two of the women got married, and no longer had the same time for the troop. My family moved across the country that summer. Don't know what happened to the troop. My impression was that girl scouting tends to fall apart by Jr. High school.
In the summertime I went to girl scout camp in Wisconsin. I don't know if it still exists. We camped in platform tents and left the site to go on multi-day canoe trips. Daily swimming in a lake, horseback riding, canoe trips, rafting. I hope camps like it still exist.
While masculine and feminine genders share many common and overlapping physical and mental traits, the male and female sexes, respectively, are not equal, perhaps "=" (politically congruent), but complementary. This implies, among other things, different developmental paths on average.
That said, we have the most expensive education system on Earth, and only 40% are functionally literate, and approximately 25% possess mathematical skills at their grade level. Then there is sex education (e.g. Planned Parenthood) in lieu of biology and morality. Throw in transgender indoctrination, and the liberalization seems clear and progressive.
Oh, well. Another experiment, with likely diverse and generational collateral damage.
"Great.... now I've got that "Sing around the camp fire" jingle from their ads stuck in my head..."
Better than the actual Camp Fire pledge, which was sung to the tune of the alt/less common version of "Away In The Manger". I seem to recall it going something like:
"Seek beauty, give service
And knowledge pursue
Be trustworthy ever
In all that you do.
Hold fast onto health
And your work glorify
And you will be happy
By the law of Camp Fire."
Song was the stuff of nightmares.
The rest was fun.
Quaestor said...:"In the very first lecture given by my first semester freshman year history professor, the creep described the Boy Scouts as a paramilitary organization."
I have, on more than one occasion over the years, had one of my few progressive friends respond to my praise of the role the Boy Scouts played in my life by calling it "America's version of the Hitler Youth." This was not meant in jest but with all seriousness. They had no understanding of the difference between the two organizations. This seems to be a common belief on the left.
>>Song was the stuff of nightmares.
Mrs. DtM is trying to remember the Snow Scouts pledge from A Series of Unfortunate Events. It's almost as bad as the CFG pledge! :)
This seems to be a common belief on the left
A common hope that normalizes their brands and shifts scrutiny from their activities.
Indiana writes: I was a Camp Fire Girl as a child precisely because I didn't enjoy Girl Scouts.
Me, too! I'm not sure if the choice was mine or Mother's but it was fun and we did all the camping/hiking stuff and it certainly wasn't political. We earned beads that we sewed on our felt vests, IIRC. Prior to that was Bluebirds. My mother was a leader for a while.
wwww said...
political messaging??
"With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party." -- 1984
"the creep described the Boy Scouts as a paramilitary organization"
Its always been that. In some countries more than others, in some places more than others, but it is so. Among other things, we were required to learn close order drill and a large dose of nationalist propaganda.
Baden Powell started the Boy Scouts for a paramilitary purpose. The same one for which he wrote a bunch of British Army training manuals.
The point is whether "paramilitary" is a bad thing. Its not.
Its always been that. In some countries more than others,
Roosevelt's CCC was a paramilitary organization and that worked out pretty well in getting young men in shape for WWII.
FWIW, this isn't the first time that BSA did this sort of gender-neutral name change. Back in the 70s, they rebranded as "Scouting/USA," though, of course, they ended up abandoning the name. The Girl Scouts weren't very happy about it then, either, though I also recall there were rumors that the original name change was in preparation for co-branding or even merging some programs with the Girl Scouts.
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Scouting/USA
Even now your preferred sexual activity, we presume.
5/2/18, 3:15 PM
Quaestor said...
Or maybe it's your only available outlet, shall we say?
5/2/18, 3:19 PM
No, Q, he likes Brazilian rentboys.
@Questor and @Bad Lieutenant:
I didn't say I practiced for the merit badge, much less gained it. I know, reading is hard when you're blinded by bigotry.
As a current BSA member, I've been following what's going on closely.
Yes, BSA is accepting girls into Cubs and soon girls into Scouts. Unlike other world scouting groupss, they're not totally mixed. In Cubs girls are in the pack, but in separate dens. In Scouts girls will have their own troops. They'll be able to do all the things the young men can do, but they'll do it with other girls. The 2 deep leadership principle with girls will require at least one woman leader. Girls will be able to camp, in the great outdoors, in tents, using catholes for bodily functions. GSA doesn't allow primitive camping. That's going to be the big draw away from GSA. Girls allowed to do things that GSA has long prohibited.
BSA looked at mixed sex Scout units around the world, including our close neighbor Scouts Canada. And discovered that when units were mixed, adults concentrated on helping the girls achieve. Leaving the boys to fend for themselves. Hence, the separation of boys and girls at the troop level. The girl troops will be able to do everything the boy troops do, but with girls. None of the requirements for rank advancements or merit badges will change.
mccullough said...
For better or worse, youth sports over the last 25 years has become more highly organized and monetized. Boys who play sports have no time for scouts. If the more athletic boys aren’t joining scouts, who are they getting?
In my rural district- and probably all over- the biggest problem for Scouts and other youth organizations is HS sports and school sports policies. When I was a kid, missing practice because of a Scout or Church youth group meeting or event was an acceptable excuse. School sports was part of life, not the be all end all of existence. Now, if a kids misses practice, for virtually any reason, he/she can't participate in the next game or meet. No exceptions. Tough to develop well rounded kids when their choice is total devotion to sports- or no sports at all. Every kid seems to think he's going to college on a full scholarship when he becomes the school sports star. Most aren't. Especially if they're the star of a HS with a 90 student graduating class. As for what wwww said...
"One of my coworkers has a son who is an Eagle Scout and who works for one of the regional scouting offices. My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports.", that's complete and utter BS. Most of our Eagle Scouts have been varsity athletes. Most of our Scouts have active in organized sports while they were active in Scouts. We've also had a few Scouts over the years in no organized sports who earned their Lifesaving Merit Badge. Here's the requirements if you don't think Scouts are athletic enough for organized sports: https://meritbadge.org/wiki/index.php/Lifesaving
rhhardin said...
Food on camping trips might be better with girls taking care of it.
That's a laugh. A few years back we held a cooking contest in town square. Girl Scout efforts were, well, pitiful. Our troop eats well. There are other troops that eat better. Looking the Girl Scout efforts, it's a pretty sad Boy Scout Troop if adding girls makes camp food better. At the Scout level- the boys do meal planning, cooking, and clean up. New Scouts get some guidance at first. But it's their job. The adults can either go with the menu, or plan, prepare, and clean up after themselves. We did that once. The boys menu for evening meal was designed for easy clean up- they were getting lazy. We had strip steaks and pan fried potatoes. Only had to do that once...
Tough to develop well rounded kids when their choice is total devotion to sports- or no sports at all. Every kid seems to think he's going to college on a full scholarship when he becomes the school sports star.
I think that is a significant issue. My grandson is in Little League and flag Football. His father was a Fire Explorer Scout.
He is now a fireman with almost 20 years.
As for what wwww said...
"One of my coworkers has a son who is an Eagle Scout and who works for one of the regional scouting offices. My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports.", that's complete and utter BS.
I did not say this!!! This was someone else. I may have quoted someone else to refute them. I knew/know several Eagle Scouts and I was very aware of the intense athletic activities.
jimbino said...
@Questor and @Bad Lieutenant:
I didn't say I practiced for the merit badge, much less gained it. I know, reading is hard when you're blinded by bigotry.
5/2/18, 6:44 PM
Weaksauce. jimbino, you are worthless like Alec Baldwin.
I was quoting Larry J. who wrote, "One of my coworkers has a son who is an Eagle Scout and who works for one of the regional scouting offices. My coworker told me that, by and large, scouting's traditional demographic was for boys who weren't athletic enough to participate in organized sports."
This was my comment @ 12:20 pm
This surprises me, but maybe things have changed. The Eagle Scouts I know/knew were extremely athletic. Hiking for days, mountain climbing, spelunking.
btw- glad to hear girls are in their own troops.
People will sign up their kids for the organization with better leadership, activities, and social experience. If the Girl Scouts have turned into a crafting, non-camping, cookie-selling org with bad leadership, then parents will gravitate to the boy scouts.
I do wonder, at campsites where many troops congregate, will there be sex-segregated weekends? That weekend my troop showed up at the cave by mistake, we were about 13 girl scouts amidst about 100 or more boys. It was fall or late spring. We were all sleeping in a large cave for two nights. The mess hall was outside the cave. I don't remember what age, but 11 or 12. Some of the boys were acting up, mooning the girls and whatnot. Nothing much happened, but it was a strange environment. I don't think that kind of gender ratio is healthy for overnights, especially at that age.
And the YMCA had become just the Y.
All B.S.A. Troops will be single-sex. I imagine that some sponsors will have both types of Troops and coordinate them to a greater or lesser degree. Others won't. In any case they will be organized separately with separate Scoutmasters. The degree of contact between them will be up to the parents of the Scouts involved.
I've been a Scout or Scout leader for 37 years. American girls want the B.S.A. program and America needs American girls to get this program. Next year I will staff the 2019 World Jamboree for two weeks in the Bechtel Summit Scouting Reserve in West Virginia and I'll be working with Scouts and Scouters from all over the world. There will be plenty of young women there as participants and older ones as staff. I can't wait.
jimbino said:
"Boy Scouts has a terrible record of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religion. The Girl Scouts have always accepted both scouts and leaders without such discrimination."
The B.S.A. discriminated against openly homosexual leaders for a long time, following societal norms and the wishes of it's sponsors. When the public judgement of the morality of homsexuality changed, it changed. As far as religion goes, they do discriminate against atheists, as the role and value of religion is a core principle of the Scouting Movement worldwide. Even the GSUSA has committed to it's international association WAGGGS (World Asociation of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) that its members hold a religious belief. Certain moral principles are part of the BSA and religion - any religion, sect or denomination, or non-denominational or entirely personal spirituality - is acceptable to them.
It's key to understand that the GSUSA is far more discriminatory than the B.S.A. The B.S.A. discriminates against the small fraction of the population that is completely atheist. The GSUSA discriminates against half the population!
Now if they can get the military to sex-segregate basic training again.
Of course the girls will join. Fewer boys will, but that's no matter so long as the local papers can trumpet at least one girl in their locality who is the first BSA girl to do x, y, and z. Meanwhile the outfit formerly known as the Boy Scouts will likely be close to culturally irrelevant within a few years, as its membership and leadership becomes increasingly made up of girls and women.
The larger problem is that boys, much like girls, prefer to socialize with their own gender most of the time. While the latter is empowering and greatly encouraged, the former is attacked as sexist and torn down as much as possible. It's hard for me to think of any formal institutions left where boys can go and enjoy activities without having girls tag along except for organized sports and certain private schools, although the transgender activists are coming for those too, achieving with drugs what could not be accomplished by nature.
buwaya wrote: Its always been that. In some countries more than others, in some places more than others, but it is so. Among other things, we were required to learn close order drill and a large dose of nationalist propaganda.
Sorry, buwaya, but I believe you're out of your depth on the subject, which is the Boy Scouts of America, not Scouting in the Philippines, or Timbuktu. I was a scout in the BSA and I know the organization. We neither marched nor drilled in anything like a military fashion. We learned nothing vaguely military except how to pitch a tent and dig a latrine, skills that have more to do with outdoor living than fighting. The only thing I encountered which struck me as military in nature was the "silent swim", one of the skills required to earn the Swimming Merit Badge, and this was only my interpretation, the text in the badge handbook did not explain any need or scenario for a silent swimming skill. I have no idea what the authors of the requirements had in mind. I pictured the situation thusly: a former scout finds himself serving in a combat situation, perhaps as a downed pilot who must try to reach land under the occupation by the enemy. Calling on the skills he learned at 12 or 13 he glides through the water, past armed guards, by swimming without causing a splash or a ripple to safety.
My son just earned his Eagle. My daughter participated in Girl Scouts until 8th grade and earned her Bronze Award. I served in troop/leadership positions in both BSA and GSUSA. (I was also a Girl Scout in my youth). Girl Scouts, as it exists now, sucks. The only thing, and I do mean the ONLY thing, that is well organized, thought out, supported by the council and HQ in Girl Scouting is cookie sales. The Girl Scout program is so progressive, it is distasteful. My daughter who is not a political minded person, first got to the point of joking about the progressiveness of the GS program and then finally had enough. Further, when my daughter investigated the process for earning a Gold Award (the GS equivalent to Eagle) it was a joke...no accountability. If you said you did the pre-reqs, then you got credit. My daughter didn't think the award was worth genuine effort because the standards seemed non-existent. My son's BSA program was the opposite...trained, committed volunteers at all levels, clear progression to goals, support for his interests, leadership training and no or little political agenda. The BSA program is far superior and I would have had my daughter in it had it been available to her back then. As a former GS-USA Troop leader, I could care less if Girl Scouts dies. It's terrible! Why do you think all those GS cookie flavors are now licensed to coffee creamers etc? They have to keep the $$$ flowing, because girls quit GS because the program sucks and then you have less cookie salesman. Good riddance GS-USA!
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