Girl Boy Scouts? Or is it Boy Girl Scouts?

On screen: Visible in Absence
Links to: Thousands of girls joining boys as Cub Scouts
And just for fun: Girl Scouts slam Boy Scouts' decision to accept girls: 'The Boy Scouts' house is on fire'

It’s been about six months since Boy Scouts decided to give up on their mission and let girls into Boy Scouts. Apparently some Cub packs have decided to start early and get the girls in before the official program start. Sooners, to coin a phrase. Time to see if my opinion has evolved on this.

Nope. The idea hasn’t gotten any better with time.

I've been involved with Scouting as an adult leader for over 20 years. Hilda and I raised two Eagle Scouts. We know the program and have seen how it works. It's been a very good thing for us and our sons (and a shitload of work too). So what about the "girls in Boy Scouts issue"? It's been a while since the announcement, and I've had time to ponder it. What now?

I still think the Boy Scouts executive leadership have lost their fucking minds. I also find it ironic that the leaders of the Girl Scouts have the clearest picture on this issue:

The girls have gotten an enthusiastic welcome from Scout leaders and the boys themselves, he said. Some of the new members are friends the boys recommended, while others are sisters of Scouts. BSA officials have said the changes are aimed, in part, at making things more convenient for busy families, though that notion doesn't sit well with some leaders at the Girl Scouts of the USA.

"To me, a daughter is not a matter of convenience. You've made the choice for your son based on what you thought was best for him, and the daughter should be getting a similar decision. We know facts prove that the Girl Scout program is the better program for the girls and young women we serve," said Patricia Mellor, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serves Vermont and New Hampshire.

"I welcome opportunity for girls, but for years, I've been reading the cases and the information coming out from Boy Scouts that their program was specifically designed for boys, only for boys," she said. "I see that they're not changing their programming and wonder why they believe a program designed by men for boys is going to meet the needs of today's girls."

Emphasis mine. First of all, she's right - but only temporarily. The program won't be "designed by men for boys" much longer. I also find the first paragraph above amusing. With a very few exceptions, the idea of girls in the program has gotten far less than an "enthusiastic welcome" from the adults and boys in Scouting that I come in contact with. The key thing, though, is the last sentence above, which I believe Ms. Mellor has wrong ("I see that they're not changing their programming"). I think big changes are coming. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but Boy Scouting won't be recognizable in a few years. This is how I think it's going to go down. 

1. The national office's promise to not force units to be coed will be broken as soon as the girl cubs start crossing over into Boy Scout troops. Moms who are feminist troublemakers (some redundancy) will make a general nuisance of themselves and claim their daughters are getting a second class experience if they are not right there with the boys, and the national office will cave in and order ALL troops to take both girls and boys.
2. This is going to cause major problems, because, duh, girls and boys are different. For one thing, girls mature sooner. A fifteen year old boy is a slobbering hormone-driven moron. A fifteen year old girl is a young woman. The level of potential distraction is off the charts, to say nothing of the variation in attention span, organization and compliance.
3. Girls mature sooner, part 2: because girls of the same age are more mature, they will begin to take over leadership positions in coed troops. Even if they don't win elections for top positions, they will swell the ranks of appointed ones, and if the boys vote them down, the adults will override the troop's preferences in the name of diversity, or something. They will likely outpace the boys in achievement and rank advancement as well, because they are more mature and organized (again, compared to boys of the same age). This will have the effect of discouraging the boys and and making them second class citizens in their own organization.
4. Organizations tend to like girls more because they are COMPLIANT (again, at least compared to boys). Just like in schools, leaders will eventually like the fact that girls are better at sitting still and listening than boys (go to a troop meeting sometime), and this will have the unintended effect of making the program change to suit the girls and not the boys - just like classrooms. Adult leaders will subtly change the program format to cater to girls and not boys, because boys are just harder to deal with. And that's why it's BOY Scouting to begin with, so the program can be tailored to their learning style and needs, and accommodate the chaos that comes from a room with several dozen boys milling around in it.
5. In today's Scouting units, there are many female adult leaders, and all of the ones I've worked with have been outstanding leaders who buy into the program and do their jobs well. This is because they are there FOR THEIR SONS. When the Cub Scout moms (dads too) start coming into the troops with their daughters, you can count on this changing. They will be interested in how the program serves the girls, because they are looking out for their daughters. This is going to accelerate the problems in items 3 and 4 above.
6. And, the masculine aspects of the Scouting program will begin to be downplayed. I fully expect the outdoor program to get watered down considerably. The outdoors can be uncomfortable and, well, icky. Can't have that.
7. The boys will lose their safe space. Instead of an all-boy environment where they can indulge their crudeness, poor hygiene, immaturity, curiosity and pyromania, they'll have to be on their best behavior. This will take a lot of the fun out of it.
8. The boys and their parents will grow tired of the political correctness that will inevitably come from all of this. When the BSA starts requiring anti-sexism training, we'll know we've arrived.
9. The boys will start to drop out. 
10. One thing that keeps the organization going is long time adult leaders who stay involved after their boys move on. The dedication and experience of these people is invaluable. Many of them (mostly men, but a fair share of women leaders as well) will grow disgusted with all of this and quit volunteering. I can attest to this personally, as I know some of these folks.
11. Boys who need male role models will lose them, and be surrounded by girls and women. This will hurt the boys who need the program, in its intended form, the most.

RE: the last point. Dalrock quotes a single mom in his article:

Since women don’t have to be chivalrous, the mothers of boys are the only ones who can point out that the girls are being petty by invading all male spaces.  In the comments to the article single mother ClaireW laments what girls are taking away from her son:

This is heart breaking to me. As a single mom to a young boy I know he desperately needs strong male role models guiding him. He’s just turned 8, this is the time he needs these men most of all, but now it’s not going to happen. Why can’t the girls have these activities in Girl Scouts? Girls and boys are equal, but that doesn’t mean they are the same. And why would we all want to be?

Emphasis mine again. I promise you there are a very large number of moms who feel exactly like this. I've seen many single moms bring their boys to Scouting because it's the only contact their sons have with adult males. If anyone thinks that all women are on board with this, I assure you they aren't. Many of them are PISSED.

If history tells us anything, it's that boys can only be civilized and mentored into high quality young men BY OTHER MEN. Women have a role, but they cannot finish the job. Only a man can be a male role model. Our society is crippled by young men who have never grown up to be real men because of missing fathers and lack of male mentors and role models. Many either become girls with male parts, or feral pack animals. Take your pick. Society suffers from it tremendously, and ironically, young women will pay the biggest price ("where are all the good men?").

Boy Scouting is no panacea for this problem, but at least the organization was, until recently, fighting the good fight. Now they've been kneecapped. By themselves.

But I'll let the Girl Scouts have the last word (last link above):

"Girl Scouts is the best girl leadership organization in the world, created with and for girls," the organization wrote in the post. "We believe strongly in the importance of the all-girl, girl-led, and girl-friendly environment that Girl Scouts provides, which creates a free space for girls to learn and thrive."

It continued, "The benefit of the single-gender environment has been well-documented by educators, scholars, other girl- and youth-serving organizations, and Girl Scouts and their families. Girl Scouts offers a one-of-a-kind experience for girls with a program tailored specifically to their unique developmental needs."

Well stated, ladies. I couldn't have said it better. Respect for standing on your principles. Change "girl" to "boy" above, and it exactly states my position. Good for the goose, good for the gander. Maybe we could send it to the BOY Scouts to remind them of their purpose.


And if any feminists have somehow found their way here, read to the bottom, and think I'm a sexist monster, my response is this: Piss off, and should you have children, I hope you have nothing but boys. That'll be a bitch of an eye-opener!