Temp Patch Question

[Eagle92]

BD,

Technically speaking yes they are two different items. i've been told that a blouse is a ladies' garment that is tailored more to their figure with, with buttons on the left side of the garment. thisis compared to a shirt which is a men's garment that is looser fitting, and has buttons on the right side. while it is socially acceptable for a lady to wear a shirt, it is not socially acceptable for a man to wear a ladies shirt. So sayeth the sis-in-law who is costumer and really big into period apparrel (sp).

[BDPT00]

OK, that being said, what does the Insignia Guide mean when it says, "Female leaders wearing either the traditional yellow Cub Scout leader blouse, the optional tan leader blouse, or the Venturing blouse ... "

 

What then are the optional tan leader blouse and the Venturing blouse? Would they not be what would commonly be referred to as Scout shirts?

 

 

 

 

[Adam S]

Eagle

 

I understand that the women outside of Cub Scouting would want to have the same options. But then I realized I might be jumping the gun and assuming WHY they would want this option, being a male I am probably missing something.

 

So why would they want the patch in a different location?

 

1. Undue attention from boys

 

If the reason to wear the patch in a higher position is to divert attention from an area of a womans anatomy, then what does that say about how we are delivering the program. All the branches of BSA have oaths and laws which indicate they will be good and moral people, clearly the person making the women uncomfortable is not living up to that.I absolutely agree the female members should be comfortable but I think it's the person who is making them uncomfortable that should be "corrected" If there is a problem would it not be better to address it with whomever is making her feel uncomfortable, might head of problems for that individual down the road and make them a better person. I also suspect that while a patch might center the attention it would still be an issue with these type of people even without a patch. Regardless, If they don't learn from it, then they probably should be removed.

 

2. Comfort/appearance

 

Patches are not very flexible (compared to cloth) so placing them over a curvy anatomy makes the uniform hang oddly and very probably is uncomfortable. If a t-shirt can draw blood during a marathon I can see a patch as a problem.

 

3. waist band

 

I know that women have higher waists, maybe they would be high enough the patch looked odd or was in some cases under the waist band?

 

These seem like valid reasons to move a patch to me, I would write a letter to National. They clearly had a reason to institue this policy and if it was for any of the issues I could think of then it should be valid for ALL women in the BSA not just those in Cub Scouts. I would add, assuming my first reason was why they went this way, they probably should consider rolling out some sort of guidleines on how to handle that if it does become a problem, I am sure allot of leaders would appreciate the knowledge.

 

Adam

 

[infoscouter]

The female patch placement is an artifact when most females in Scouting were Den Mothers. At various times the Den Mother uniform had pockets on both sides of the front, or just on the left side (I have vintage uniforms in both configurations).

 

At the point when all female Boy Scout leaders were changed to the tan blouse (versus the yellow originally designed by de la Renta), the blouse was designed to look like the men's shirt. The yellow blouse also had a pocket added at that point.

 

I seem to remember that orginally the "above the strip" option only applied to female Cub Scout leaders. The inspection sheet was changed a few years ago to include all female leaders, and now apparently to all Cub leaders. I suppose this is because some female leaders feel the patch on the right pocket is too prominent, but I rarely if ever see anyone exercising this option.