Outside Magazine: Boy Scouts Should Allow Girls

[qwazse]

If Venturing was used as a vehicle for a coed program, you'd obviously open it up to 11 year old boys. And no, it would not be "coed Boy Scouts". Venturing would a different program from Boy Scouts.

 

Maybe the revised Venturing program is not so summer camp, MB focused. Maybe the new Venturing program would provide other opportunities than summer camps.  

It's taken years of my crew giving back to the troops in our community to convince tan-shirt scouters that we're good for them. If a crew suddenly has its own youngn's to tend to, how likely will they help develop the program of neighboring troops?

 

Crews of 11-21 year olds would tick off troops who will accuse Venturing of stealing more of "their" boys and camps who lose fees from boys who would otherwise attend them.

 

And your working assumption is that these revamped venturers won't muscle in on Boy Scout activities? How'd that work for Jamboree?

Our districts' camporees and klondike derbies welcome any interested crews. There goes any pretense of needing to keep unisex patrols away from coed patrols.

Finally, thanks to BSA and NESA's overselling of the advancement method, if you ain't given girls a trail to Eagle, or entrance into O/A, you don't have an equivalent program.

 

I'm just not seeing how Venturing-extended-younger is viable, and even if it is, how it provides parents of girls access to the brand they trust.

[Stosh]

I am really sorry I have not been following along with this very confusing topic.

 

So please help me get this straight.

 

BSA is a white privileged all male program that exists to develop young men into useless member of society who only know how to abuse and put down other people with their arrogance and intolerance.

 

....and thus every young girl in America wants to join in on the program?

 

I think I might have missed something along the way.....

[RememberSchiff]

Maybe these girls want to make the Boy Scouts manly again?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5Ib3t5r4oI

[walk in the woods]

Schiff, I think you're using an outlier to make your point.  I think it's equally likely, maybe more so, that co-ed scouting turns into something much more like this, https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wdC0/2017-volkswagen-alltrack-that-feeling-puddle-song-by-grouplove.  

[Peregrinator]

Co-ed scouting:

 

[Gwaihir]

I am really sorry I have not been following along with this very confusing topic.

 

So please help me get this straight.

 

BSA is a white privileged all male program that exists to develop young men into useless member of society who only know how to abuse and put down other people with their arrogance and intolerance.

 

....and thus every young girl in America wants to join in on the program?

 

I think I might have missed something along the way.....

 

Sounds about right. You're all caught up. 

[walk in the woods]

I understand this argument - but I have a couple of questions.  Are we to assume that single mothers of girls aren't also looking for places where their daughters can have positive male role models in their lives? 

 

Isn't there value in men mentoring boys in a co-ed environment where the boys learn how to respect and listen to members of the opposite sex?

 

Isn't there value in Scouts learning that the Scout Oath and Law applies just as much to their interactions with the opposite sex as it does to their interactions with their fellow Scouts?

 

I'm not suggesting that there is no value to single-sex environments, but isn't there a way we could do both and then be able to say "We are the best Youth organization for all youth - bar none"?

I'm sure if the young woman had a daughter she would be looking for male role models, but that doesn't necessarily imply scouting is the place for that.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  I don't have daughters so I can only speak to what I've observed, the father-daughter relationship is different than the father-son relationship.  Scouting volunteers would have to deal with the difference.  

 

It's not clear to me that men mentoring boys regarding respecting, listening to and interacting with the opposite sex requires a co-ed environment.  I think it's possible the discussions are more open and frank in single-sex environments becasue it's a safe-space for boys to ask questions.  The male leadership of the troop models that respect, listening and interacting with their own relationships to back up the words.

 

It's ultimately a business decision and some flavor of local option will likely be the only viable outcome.  

[CalicoPenn]

I am really sorry I have not been following along with this very confusing topic.

 

So please help me get this straight.

 

BSA is a white privileged all male program that exists to develop young men into useless member of society who only know how to abuse and put down other people with their arrogance and intolerance.

 

....and thus every young girl in America wants to join in on the program?

 

I think I might have missed something along the way.....

 

I think I missed that entire interpretation.

[Gwaihir]

And here we go, if this value in single-sex environments, then how can it be otherwise? 

 

I just don't see the logic when this kind of reasoning. Posters give examples over and over in these discussions of the advantages of single-sex environments compared to coed equivalent programs like schools. So how does going coed all of a sudden push the program into a super program?

 

I would much rather honesty in admitting that going coed will not be an improvement for the boys program, but will the program as a whole will fit better in your view of this culture. At least that is honest and who could argue.

 

Barry

 

this. 

[RememberSchiff]

Schiff, I think you're using an outlier to make your point.  I think it's equally likely, maybe more so, that co-ed scouting turns into something much more like this, https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wdC0/2017-volkswagen-alltrack-that-feeling-puddle-song-by-grouplove.  

 

I foresee the anti-coed faction making it very hard for girls to earn Eagle, maybe even restoring the pull-up requirements in Personal Fitness. Great, because I will be there demanding the same high-bar AGAIN for boys. No more 300lb Eagle Scouts, no more Eagles who can't tie bowlines, etc., But, but, but, what about alternate requirements. Good-bye. All Eagles will have passed the same requirements. Old school.

 

My grumpy $0.01

Edited June 26, 2017 by RememberSchiff

[Col. Flagg]

....no more Eagles who can't tie bowlines, etc., But, but, but, what about alternate requirements. Good-bye. All Eagles will have passed the same requirements. Old school.

 

This is how it should be now EXCEPT for special needs Scouts.

[RememberSchiff]

Sorry, IMO no exceptions, It means my sons would not earn Eagle. Nothing wrong with that, they are good scouts and will be good men. Old school, real world.

Edited June 26, 2017 by RememberSchiff

[Stosh]

I had a scout who couldn't do a pull-up to save his soul.  He got credit for TF requirement because he got his elbows to bend a little bit.  One had to look closely, but it did show "improvement".  He went on to Eagle.  How he got through personal fitness I don't know.  He also went on to play Big 10 football as a defensive lineman on a championship team.....  Saw him a few years back at an alumni gathering of scouts and asked him if he ever figured out how to do pull-ups.  Nope, never did.

[CalicoPenn]

And here we go, if this value in single-sex environments, then how can it be otherwise? 

 

I just don't see the logic when this kind of reasoning. Posters give examples over and over in these discussions of the advantages of single-sex environments compared to coed equivalent programs like schools. So how does going coed all of a sudden push the program into a super program?

 

I would much rather honesty in admitting that going coed will not be an improvement for the boys program, but will the program as a whole will fit better in your view of this culture. At least that is honest and who could argue.

 

Barry

 

I don't know if going co-ed will be an improvement to the program.  I also do not know if going co-ed will not be an improvement to the program.  I don't know if a single-sex environment is better.  I also do not know if a single-sex environment is worse.

 

I do recognize that a single-sex environment may have value.  I also recognize that a co-ed environment may have value.  I do now know if one environment is better than the other, and if so by how much, or if they are both the same.

 

For some folks, it may be a cultural thing (whatever that's supposed to mean).  I am not advocating for co-ed Scouting.  I am also not advocating or defending single-sex Scouting.    I am just being open-minded about the possibility and the potential of Co-ed Scouting.    If Scouting remains single-sex, I am just fine with it. 

 

I am, however,  willing to challenge the tropes and memes about how awful Scouting would be and how much would need to change if co-ed Scouting were to take place.  I have no problem challenging anyone's assertion that if girls were allowed in to Boy Scouts, that the program would have to change.  I have yet to see anyone give any actual examples of what would have to change in the program.  Don't just tell us the program would have to change (and again, remember to keep program separate from administration - I readily admit that there will likely need to be some administrative changes), tell us exactly what you think you would have to change in the program - and why it would need to change. 

[qwazse]

My Italian scout flies home today.

That's the real problem with going co-ed: More kids to fall in love with, then watch fly away and break your heart.