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2 reasons. 1. Guys will always hide their feelings, emotions, and turmoil. Especially when when trying to make an impression on similarly aged females. But even as adults the societal norm is that men need to be the tough, unemotional and independent, despite that folks say otherwise. Sadly I know folks who have major physical and emotional traume, and when they go to their wives or significant others, they have been told to deal with it themselves, or worse divorced because the health issue caused roles to be reversed. Their support is all men's groups, and even then some of this doesn't get discussed. 2. Since it didn't affect you directly, you never noticed. This has been around for quite some time.

That's what this looks like to me. Obviously being young can be rocky and the adult world needs to offer compassionate and skillful support, but I am curious about why this just wasn't a thing when I was that age myself and now it is.

Most of the best Troops and Packs in my area have older scouters involved.  One major issue is that there appears to be less willingness to volunteer the massive amount of hours scouting requires from the upcoming generation of parents.  One Troo I talked with mentioned that in the past there was some competition over who would be Scoutmaster and now parents want a program but don't want to volunteer.  This may be a N of 3-4 and may not be widespread, but I get the sense that BSA sees a problem.   Simplifying programs could be beneficial but could also lead to some really bad outcomes.  I hope for the best but I respect Mike and if he is concerned I am as well.

Once BSA moved to admit girls, it should have changed the name to reflect its dual membership. Once BSA decided to accept girls' membership dollars, and charge girls the same fees that it charges to boys, it had a duty to make sure the general program experiences and opportunities were similar. That's what a well managed, functional organization would do. If it didn't want girls, and it didn't want their membership numbers and their membership dollars, then it would have made sense to retain the old name and the old perspectives and live with that. But that's not what the organization did, and girls are now part of the organization and have been for six years. It is past time for the name to change and for units and patrols to be non gendered. I used to think non gendered units only needed to be an option, but that is still extremely limiting especially when you see some of the recent comments. Girls who are crossing over to a troop and paying the same dollars should have the same opportunity to find a unit as boys do, but right now they don't. I do think that the organization, in its typically dysfunctional way, has completely mismanaged the addition of girls to scouting since its launch in 2018. Its regrettable that it has become such a distraction from other issues that BSA is also mismanaging equally well through poor leadership. A lot of these issues around girls should have been resolved six years ago around the time of their addition, and not now while there are more serious post-bankruptcy issues that BSA, or I guess now SA, needs to be focusing on, like preventing more SA. 

Western Society has focused on girls and women for the past 40+ years. Even the current studies that say girls need all girl environments at times, neglects the fact that boys need it as well.  It's on my to read list, after I finish my current series, but A SELF MADE MAN, written by a women who impersonated a man for 18 months, discusses how society is so focused on women, that the mental, physical, and social needs of men are completely neglected. The author's  conclusion:  "I really like being a woman. ... I like it more now because I think it's more of a privilege."   Part of having a discussion  is the ability to leave your prejudices behind and listen folks are actually saying.   Not really. Folks find their ways But what is upsetting is when boys lose their safe spaces, but girls do not. Some areas, like athletics, boys have their own space because of Title 9 forcing to have equal number of women's sports. But even then that can hurt boys. I know one university who had enough interest to field teams in two different sports, but because there was no interest by girls to increase their number of sports, those guys had to stick with being in a "club league" and not be a varsity team. More later.