"A vest designed for the modern Girl Scout must have pockets, and those pockets must be large enough to fit the largest model of the iPhone."

"'In all our fittings that was the No. 1 thing,' said Wendy Lou, the deputy chief revenue officer of the Girl Scouts of the USA. 'Can you fit the iPhone in there? Yes? Let’s go.'"

From "The Girl Scout Uniform, Updated for Gen Z/A stylish utility vest. Leggings. Denim. For the first time in decades, the Girl Scouts are getting new clothes" (NYT).

I thought the reason not to get the large size iPhone was that you wanted to be able to carry your phone in your pocket. Now, it seems, pockets need to be large enough to carry the large iPhone. What a strange inversion of priorities!

ADDED: On the subject of me and pockets, I'll just quote a post of mine from last year:

I eschewed purse-carrying from the age of about 18 until... when was it? I insisted that clothes have pockets, only carried around a skinny wallet and keys, and considered it a feminist issue. Also a freedom issue. At some point, I decided it was simpler to carry a very small handbag, big enough for a wallet and keys and — ah, yes, the cell phone. It was the cell phone that made me want to get my carry-ables out of my clothing and separately compartmentalized.

Even a small phone was too much for the pockets I felt good about. Too bulky! I can't imagine wanting the bulkiness of the large iPhone as part of my clothing.

"We wanted to land on something that evokes the past but also conveys the inclusive nature of the program going forward. We’re trying to find the right way to say we’re here for both young men and young women."

Said Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh, describing the "incredibly fun" process of deciding to change the name of the Boy Scouts program to Scouts BSA (USA Today reports).

Of course, girls can join Boy Scouts now, and why wouldn't they?

"While some have praised the plucky scout for figuring out where the demand would probably be, the Girl Scouts organization has been wrestling with..."

"... how to handle marijuana-adjacent sales as more states have legalized the drug. Girls who wheel carts full of cookies are generally free to travel where they please with their parents, even if that path takes them past marijuana shops, but there are often stricter rules around where to set up booths or stands. There are no nationwide policies related to marijuana dispensaries. Each local organization sets its own policies."

From "A Girl Scout Sold 300 Boxes of Cookies Near a Marijuana Shop" (NYT).

Here's the marijuana shop's Instagram, which forced the Girl Scouts to confront the problem of the cookie-eating/marijuana connection:

Get some Girl Scout Cookies with your GSC today until 4pm! 🍃🍪 Have a friend that wants to #tagalong? Bring them with - shopping is more fun with friends anyways. 👭👬👫

A post shared by Urbn Leaf (@urbnleafca) on Feb 2, 2018 at 1:43pm PST

Should the marijuana business be allowed to appropriate the wholesomeness of Girl Scouts for its own self-promotion? But I'd like to talk about how the cookie business has appropriated the Girl Scout brand all these years. It's not as though cookies are good for you.

What's more damaging to your body? (Exclude health damage attributable to the quasi-illegality of marijuana, such as anxiety about breaking the law or spending time in prison.)

Cookies

Marijuana

 

pollcode.com free polls

"Some Girl Scout badges promote stereotypical notions of femininity. Many are about helping others."

"Even the flowers badge asks girls to 'find out how flowers help people.' There’s also a focus on appearance. The independence badge, for 'striding down your path to changing the world,' includes learning how to 'make your clothes look great.' The 'eating for you' badge — recently called 'eating for beauty' — emphasizes how nutrition helps with 'smooth skin, shiny hair and strong nails.' The Scout Law for [Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts] includes similar virtues, like being honest, helpful and friendly. But girls might be better off, too, if more boys earned badges like those from the Girl Scouts for respect and fair play, and for taking responsibility for their actions, not to mention babysitting and making dinner. In that spirit, here are 10 Girl Scout badges that might benefit Boy Scouts...."

From "Things Boys Could Learn at Girl Scouts" (NYT).

"The Boy Scouts’ decision to open its ranks to girls appears to be less an evolution toward openness and inclusion than a calculated business strategy."

"The move allows the organization, which has been rocked by revelations of decades of sexual abuse, to improve its public image.... Most crucially, it’s a direct attack on the Girl Scouts, a group that shares some historical roots with the Boy Scouts but has grown into a very different organization, with very different values. Unlike the Boy Scouts, in which individual troops are overwhelmingly affiliated with churches — a large share are tied to conservative denominations; an estimated 20 percent of scouts are Mormon, for instance — the Girl Scouts are a secular organization.... The Girl Scouts have long focused on social justice, diversity and inclusion in their activities...."

From a NYT op-ed titled "Girls, Don’t Become Boy Scouts," by Kate Tuttle.

If I were a young girl, I'd pick the organization that had activities that were fun and useful for me to learn, and "social justice, diversity and inclusion" doesn't even sound like an activity.

"The Girl Scouts Have Accused The Boy Scouts Of Secretly Trying To Recruit Girls To Appeal To Millennial Parents."

Buzzfeed reports.

The strongly worded letter — obtained by BuzzFeed News — alleged that BSA was "surreptitiously testing the appeal of a girls’ offering to millennial parents."...

"Through various means we have learned that BSA is very seriously considering opening their programs to girls and we have made repeated efforts to engage with them and talk about the implications," the [Girl Scouts] spokesperson told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday.

"It's a potentially dangerous and bad idea," the spokesperson said, citing research supporting "single gender programming" which says that girls learn best in an all-girls environment when it comes to scouting.

Note: This isn't about transgender kids. It's about the perceived attitude of millennial parents.

Girls who want to join the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.

These are not female-to-male transgender persons but girls who prefer the activities offered in Boy Scouts: "they would rather be camping and tying knots than selling cookies."

And they say shifting attitudes are on their side: Bathrooms are going unisex in deference to transgender people, the Supreme Court has redefined marriage to include same-sex couples, and even the Boy Scouts have softened their stance on gay scouts and scout leaders.

In this liberal-minded community, about two hours north of San Francisco, a group of girls ages 10 and 13 who have named themselves the Unicorns... began to consider themselves Boy Scouts last fall, after they enrolled in a skills-building course, Learning for Life, that is affiliated with the organization and is offered to boys and girls. Several Unicorns had tried the Girl Scouts but found the experience too sedate: rest time and whispering instead of playing tag and lighting fires.

Rest time and whispering! Is that really what Girl Scouts do? Obviously, the Girl Scouts object to that characterization.

[E]xpanding the definition of “Boy Scout” is alarming some parents, who voiced concerns about the prospect of shared tents, the erosion of valuable boys-only time and the possibility that girls — who already outperform boys in many areas — might start to snap up all the leadership positions.

"The move by the Girl Scouts this week to allow its troopers to sell cookies online has been met with mixed emotions by parents..."

"... officials within the organization and privacy advocates who raised concerns about exposing so many girls, as young as 13, to the potential for cyber-bullying, online predators and other dangers of the Web...."

Ultimately, the Girl Scouts said it is relying on parents to be the last line of defense against other kinds of threats online. That's why parental education is paramount, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. Some may not think twice about letting their kids send links to their Web sites far and wide, or upload videos that show off their schools, homes or neighborhoods as part of a sales pitch. And in the intense competition to increase sales, some youths might let their location or full name slip.

"First, some parents would need to earn a privacy badge themselves," he said. "But you can't treat teens like little adults in terms of their privacy, especially when they're being encouraged to sell no matter what."

Should the Girl Scouts give up cookie-selling?

"To some doctors and parents, the tradition increasingly feels out of step with the uncomfortable public health realities of our day," reports NPR.

"The problem is that selling high-fat sugar-laden cookies to an increasingly calorie-addicted populace is no longer congruent with [the Girl Scouts' aim to make the world a better place]... I spend my days telling patients to eat less, eat better and exercise... So to me it seems like the Girl Scouts are profiteering off an obvious public health problem."

Wrote some heart doctor on his blog, but NPR returns to the concept that the cookies are a tradition.

Should the Girl Scouts give up cookie-selling?
	Yes, girls shouldn't be pushed to push unhealthful commodities.
	Yes, the cookies are bad, but we can't say no to the girl, then we can't say no to the cookie.
	Yes, whatever might yield progress in the war on obesity should be tried.
	No, because it's a tradition and traditions deserve respect.
	No, because little girls need to practice how to sell things and raise money.
	No, because people need to practice resisting sales pressure from little girls.
pollcode.com free polls

Weird outrage over a woman getting fired for selling Girl Scout cookies at work.

And she worked in a retail store — using its retail space to sell a product and take cash that did not go into the cash register. I do not get the FoxDC presentation of this story: "Imagine being fired for selling Girl Scout Cookies at work. It happened to a woman...." Well, of course! I can't imagine thinking she doesn't deserve to be fired for this.

Quite aside from the obvious conflict with the business interests of her employer, why are adults taking over the cookie-selling that is supposed to be part of the scouts "girl-led, entrepreneurial program" (to quote Girl Scout COO Colleen Cibula)?

The fired woman's troop leader — as FoxDC puts it — is "worried" that the firing "will scare away other potential cookie moms — and end up ultimately hurting  the scouts themselves." Cookie moms?!

"A cookie mom is a self-less person. She doesn't profit from any of this in any way. She's doing it out of the goodness of her heart... I don't think anyone should be terminated for doing such a charitable thing."

Even if it is conceived of as a charity rather than an entrepreneurial program, retail workers aren't free to solicit donations for their favorite charities!

Have people lost their minds? If Girls Scouts is a good charity, it ought to be teaching the girls admirable lessons. It's bad enough that they're guilt-tripping people into eating more cookies (or buying cookies that they don't eat), but making mothers, especially working mothers, feel that they are supposed to do the work for their girls is ridiculous. Something is very wrong here.

From the comments at the link:

EVERYONE sells girl scow [sic] cookies at work! Its not safe to go door to door, and after you exhaust all your family, friends and neighbors that only leaves your co workers!

It's not safe to go door to door? Was it ever a good idea to send little girls out to be door-to-door salespersons? The cookie-selling program seems entirely unprincipled. We shouldn't even be eating cookies in the first place.

***

"Scow" was an interesting Freudian slip for "scout." One definition for "scow" in the OED is: "Orkney and Shetland. ‘A big gaunt woman’... slang (chiefly U.S.). A disparaging term for a woman."

1866   T. Edmondston Etymol. Gloss. Shetland & Orkney Dial. 99   ‘A great scow of a woman’—a tall, thin, bony woman....
1960   H. Wentworth & S. B. Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 449/2   Scow,..a large, ugly, and/or unpleasant woman.
1970   R. Lowell Notebk. 143   Often the Dutch were sacks, their women a sack, Obstinate, undefeated hull of the old scow.
1970   G. Greer Female Eunuch 265   More familiar terms in current usage refer to women as receptacles for refuse..as..scow.

"If a child identifies as a girl and the child's family presents her as a girl..."

"... Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout."

But what if a child is presented as a boy who has a strong identification with things that are traditionally female? Here's Bobby Montoya, whose mother tried to get him into the Girl Scouts, but didn't claim he was female:



My problem with this is that the argument that he belongs in the Girl Scouts is premised on stereotyping girls. I think the better argument for kids like Bobby is: Let children choose their own toys, hairstyles, clothes and don't make a big deal about whether he or she has chosen things that are more often chosen by members of the opposite sex. Emphasize individual freedom!

Bobby's family put him in a situation where he was excluded because — as the troop leader allegedly put it — he has "boy parts." He has a real physical difference from the girls, and he was classified based on that, not his personal preferences and interests. Now, he's focused on genitalia-based limitations, as if his natural body parts are his problem!

AND: When is it appropriate to make your child a gender celebrity?