The issue with girls in Scouting

[qwazse]

Did you say nuns?  

 

No, no, no.  A thousand times...no.  All of my Catholic school boys will quit if we invite the nuns on our camping trips.  It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

Well, None took me up on it. I guess they thought it would be habit forming.

 

Actually, I never did ask. I had a relative in the Benedictine order who I was on the verge of calling. Never needed to follow through. My scouts were mostly Protestant or unchurched and wouldn't have a foundation for the fears that you seem to be so intimate with, DCO. 

 

In PA, sisters from some orders are avid sportswomen. Sister John Paul Bauer gained a notoriety after her diocese posted a picture of her with her prize buck. Evidently some activists took umbrage of the hypocrisy of Christian clergy killing wild game. They clearly missed St. Peter's vision to "take, kill, and eat" from the cornucopia of the Lord's provision. Regardless, the story made me come up with one of my favorite puns:

"Why did Sr. Bauer leave a space for her whiskey in her gun locker ammo shelf? ... She wanted it to be lead by the spirit."

[Eagle94-A1]

Did you say nuns?  

 

No, no, no.  A thousand times...no.  All of my Catholic school boys will quit if we invite the nuns on our camping trips.  It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

 

My 5th grade teacher, who was a nun and worked at a summer retreat house. SHe would either lifeguard or backpack, depending upon the need.

[NJCubScouter]

The "nuns" thing took me aback as well. Recently I accompanied my wife to her high school reunion (the number is classified.) She went to a Catholic high school. At dinner, I think I was the only person at the table who went to a public high school. I heard a lot of stories about nuns, some of which I had heard from my wife. None (if you'll pardon the expression) were about nuns going camping.

[David CO]

Well, None took me up on it. I guess they thought it would be habit forming.

 

Actually, I never did ask. I had a relative in the Benedictine order who I was on the verge of calling. Never needed to follow through. My scouts were mostly Protestant or unchurched and wouldn't have a foundation for the fears that you seem to be so intimate with, DCO. 

 

In PA, sisters from some orders are avid sportswomen. Sister John Paul Bauer gained a notoriety after her diocese posted a picture of her with her prize buck. Evidently some activists took umbrage of the hypocrisy of Christian clergy killing wild game. They clearly missed St. Peter's vision to "take, kill, and eat" from the cornucopia of the Lord's provision. Regardless, the story made me come up with one of my favorite puns:

"Why did Sr. Bauer leave a space for her whiskey in her gun locker ammo shelf? ... She wanted it to be lead by the spirit."

 

My fifth grade teacher wouldn't have needed a rifle or ammunition.  That nun could have taken down a prize buck just with her icy glare.

[Eagle1993]

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/20170916/girl-scout-leaders-not-happy-boy-scouts-looking-to-be-one-stop-shop

 

"Jeff Hotchkiss, executive director and CEO of the Mohegan Council in Worcester, said the council discussed the matter at a meeting in August. He said the volunteers thought the concept should be pursued.

 

“The response across the nation is that 75 percent like the concept,†Hotchkiss said. “It’s still undefined as to what it really means. At this point, the national (office) said let’s just keep talking about it.â€"

 

This is the first BSA official I have heard quoted saying anything about the results of the survey. I don't believe this means anything is imminent but it probably means this issue will not be going away any time soon.

[Eagle94-A1]

My gut feeling is that the decisiom has been made and BSA is going through the motions, I've had a council employee tell me the decision will be announced in January, my DE when I talked to him about it was shocked I knew about the January annoucement, and the SE at the town hall meeting said  we may hear something "Sometime after January."

 

Then we are getting all this "Family Scouting"  "Camp with the Fam" and "Scouting serves the Family" message in various BSA literature, promotioms, and advertising. And lets not forget the new July 2017 applications which have no gender restrictions for Cub and Boy Scouts.

[ianwilkins]

Something about the expression "Camping with the fam" just sets my teeth on edge. I'm sure it's not being lost in translation as "fam" is not an uncommon abbreviation over here either. Just feels like an embarrassing Uncle trying to be down wiv da kidz.

[Cambridgeskip]

Something about the expression "Camping with the fam" just sets my teeth on edge. I'm sure it's not being lost in translation as "fam" is not an uncommon abbreviation over here either. Just feels like an embarrassing Uncle trying to be down wiv da kidz.

 

My scouts have a great expression for any adult who is just embarrassing when it comes to doing that. "Home wiv ma downies". One of the most scathing put downs I've ever heard! (thankfully not directed at me. So far.)

[Sentinel947]

BSA: "How do you do, fellow kids?"

[mgood777]

I was mildly opposed to letting women be Scoutmasters and Assistants back when that went down. I have since been privileged to work with some outstanding female Scouters who have changed my mind on the subject. But once we had male and female Scoutmasters and Assistants, and women in the OA   I figured we should go completely coed. I'm surprised it hasn't happened long before now.

 

The Girl Scouts are, I guess, the reason BSA hasn't done that. But GSUSA is not providing the program many girls want. And professional Scouters are all about numbers, numbers which have been declining since the early seventies. They see this as a way to boost numbers. (Always keep that in mind when evaluating anything coming from a Pro Scouter, it's about numbers. One more unit, one more Scout, one more dollar. It is their lifeblood. It is behind everything they do. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. More units and more Scouts means the Aims of Scouting shared with more young people. More money provides the means. Someone has to deal with that end of things, and I'm glad it's not me.)

 

I agree that a lot of this has probably been decided, or if not completely decided, then pretty well agreed upon and they've put out feelers to see what kind of reaction they'll get. I know our Scout Executive showed up at our Roundtable to discuss this with us. (Our district usually has 5-8 people show up at Roundtable. The SE doesn't usually grace us with his presence, let alone take over 30 minutes of the meeting.) No, we didn't get any "inside information." He just asked questions much like those in this poll and invited conversation on the subject.

 

I don't know any more than anyone here, and probably less than some, but here's what I think will happen:

 

Tiger Cubs will become coed. The following year, Wolf Dens will be coed. And so on, staying with that one group as they move up through Cub Scouting. During the time they're Cubs, there will be discussions of whether we should eventually have fully-coed Boy Scout Troops or have separate girls troops and boys troops.

That's the part I suspect has already been decided.

 

Beyond that I predict something like this:

By the time these coed dens are Webelos getting ready to cross over, I think discussions of separate programs will evaporate and these Cubs who've been together since they were Tigers will be crossed over into Boy Scout Troops. At that point Scouting will go coed, top to bottom. Maybe they'll leave it up to the Chartered Organization whether to have coed troops or separate boys troops and girls troops. Maybe they'll encourage separate boys patrols and girls patrols within coed troops. We'll have several years to figure out how we want to handle that.

 

See Venturing for ideas. As Crew Committee Chair of a new Crew (among several hats I wear   ) I'm still figuring it out.

Edited September 19, 2017 by mgood777

[Snow Owl]

I have my prediction sealed in an envelope

[Hawkwin]

That's the issue that's missing in the poll: not enough moms. It doesn't matter if the units are coed or not. Hopefully I'm wrong but we've had moms that will do some challenging campouts once, likely just to say they could do it, and then they're done with that. The problem with GS is the lack of dads. It's not that all moms don't want to do it but the dads are more likely to want to do the adventurous stuff.

 

In an age of gender fluidity, would "moms" even be a requirement considering two-deep leadership and YPT?

 

Seriously, why would we necessarily need more moms if we were some mix of coed? Not arguing that moms wouldn't be beneficial, just not necessarily an impediment to such a change.

[qwazse]

In an age of gender fluidity, would "moms" even be a requirement considering two-deep leadership and YPT?

 

Seriously, why would we necessarily need more moms if we were some mix of coed? Not arguing that moms wouldn't be beneficial, just not necessarily an impediment to such a change.

This is a really big country, there is a huge cost to assuming that social activism has established norms on any issue. Although this particular forum would allow me to delve further, I'll stop there.

 

@@Hawkwin, the one word answer: "Trust". You and I might have it regarding one anothers' daughters, but I assure you that parents of everyone else's girls would not have it toward us. More importantly, from BSA's perspective, lawyers representing aggrieved parents would capitalize on that mistrust.

[Eagle94-A1]

In an age of gender fluidity, would "moms" even be a requirement considering two-deep leadership and YPT?

 

Seriously, why would we necessarily need more moms if we were some mix of coed? Not arguing that moms wouldn't be beneficial, just not necessarily an impediment to such a change.

 

I can see it now, male Scouter self identifying as a female Scouter so that girls can camp.    Don't know if that is better or worse than calling Scouting trips 'Family Camping" when ther is no female Scouter able to go.

 

Seriously though,  Female leadership would be required if girls are present if we use Venturing YPT as the model. Which scuttlebutt says is in fact the case with new YPT that will be coming out soon. May not necessarily be Moms per se, but definately female leaders will be needed. 

[Hawkwin]

Thanks qwazse (how do I link your name btw?)

 

For me, it isn't an issue of trust, it is an issue of logistics. The default assumption is not to trust, hence Two deep leadership and YPT. I can't say that I know every parent in our troop and I certainly can't speak to their sexual orientation or their criminal history (or proclivities). I have to trust that even if there was an adult (male or female) that had such attractions for children went on a camp out, that they would never allowed to be alone with scouts and that I have trained my son how to handle such situations.

 

You could have straight dads on a camp out, gay dads on a camp out, straight moms, gay moms, bi-moms, transgendered moms, etc. etc.

 

Simply having someone that identifies as a mom or female go camping with the girls does not necessarily provide any greater protection, or trust for that matter.

 

Within my son's troop, one of the scout's mom is gay. Having her chaperone girls would not necessarily be any "safer" (though I trust her completely) than having a dad chaperone. Logistically, I don't see us getting so far off into the weeds of asking each parent their sexual preference - and even if we did, we all know that declared sexual orientation doesn't provide any protection from a child predator.

 

If a parent can't trust BSA with their daughters because of the lack of female leaders, then they should not necessarily assume that a female leader provides addition protection. Two deep and YPT should be what creates that trust, not the assumed and potentially fluid orientation of the chaperone.