Scouting_in_the_Greatland

This topic has seemed to generate a bit of controversy, so Id like to state for the record, that neither I nor anyone at our local unit, has anything against women being active and important members of the scouting team. There are actually more women than men currently serving as active adult leaders in our troop. They attend meetings, go on campouts, serve as merit badge councilors and committee members, etc. We could not survive without the time, energy, and effort all these women bring to bear. The positive role model these women set are definitely an essential component to an overall recipe for success. So no, this is not a smoke screen for anything. It is just our opinion that with all the other female representation already available in the lives of our boys, there is nothing wrong with saying that wed like them to also have a positive male role model in the form of our Scoutmaster. In our unique circumstance, we feel this is best for our boys. Other units are free to feel differently. So, I want to apologize to anyone who was offended by this thread, Im sure there are a lot of dynamite women SMs out there who could outlast me in the woods. The original posting was just meant to be a procedural question about the line of authority within the scouting hierarchy, it was never meant to be a value judgment between men vs. women.

Thanks for all the input! This is a great resource. But I guess I'd like to clarify something. Nobody is saying that a woman might not make a good SM in any broad discussion of the matter. But when you get down in the dirt on the local, personal level of each unit's circumstance, such broad concepts are not always useful. Many of the boys who seek out scouting are sorely lacking a positive male role model in their life. Moms are great! But sometimes a boy needs a positive male influence to assist the women in his life, in helping him along his journey to become a better man. I realize how politically incorrect it must sound to suggest that a women be excluded from being a SM; but again, down here where the rubber meets the road, sometimes that is what is often in the boys best interest. So Im glad to see that there does appear to be a local process (via the CO) to determine if this is the best fit for the local situation. Respectfully submitted.

This may seem like a strange question, but a local debate has developed at our unit level about whether a local unit committee has the authority to define a Scoutmaster as a qualified "man." Some argue that we can not discriminate in that way and that we must always entertain the possibility of a Scoutmaster being a woman. We do not wish to enter the debate about whether a woman is capable of being a Scoutmaster, here or anyplace else; we only want to know if it is okay for our Troop to say that for our unit alone, we want our Scoutmaster to be male. Does anyone know if this is something we can legally do, or will we find ourselves on CNN? Thanks!