If the BSA were to provide services to girls, whats the best way?

[UCEagle72]

Packsaddle -

 

What Beavah was alluding to is the point at which a failing program (in this case, a TV show) will "do anything" to improve its situation, but actually, it is going into decline.

 

The actual phrase comes from the old "Happy Days" TV show, which near the end of it's run, had an episode where Fonzie jumps a shark in a pen on water skis (Ron Howard is driving the boat). If you have never seen this ... YouTube is your friend:

 

 

[Basementdweller]

Llbob

 

So how do you handle the parents who enroll their boys in scouting to make him camp and enjoy the outdoors. We had a mother this summer drive her son to resident camp daily 2 hours each way because he would not sleep in a tent.

 

 

 

As pointed out earlier most packs are unofficially coed. Keep boy scouts for boys, let the young ladys join venturing.

 

I think it would help with one element of the fume problem.

[moosetracker]

Although it doesn't convert me totally, I will have to score 1 point for the other side with Thomas54 comment

"The boys are already losing to girls in colleges attendance, and in leadership positions at the high school level"..

 

He is correct in the highschool part, girls because they mature faster, may buckle down and learn faster and may also volunteer more readily to be SPL while the boys try to get out of it.

 

College is a choice of who wishes to attend or not. Boys in scouting have a higher percentage to go to college, and I don't think that will change if they still get the scouting experience next to a girl. But maybe we will send a few more girls to college too.. Ooops so sorry...

 

Our program draws boys who already want to excel and do something with their lives and be leaders. So the program itself will weed out the boys who do not want those things. So I think the boys can hold a pretty equal stand with the girls. And when they get out in the work world the boys still get more opportunity to advance. It would do the girls good to learn some new tricks to compete with them when in a career.

 

[Twocubdad]

Good thread, sorry I missed so much while away at camp.

 

Here's the problem as I see it:

 

In a perfect world, I would make Cubs co-ed, Scouting separate, and Venturing co-ed. Without drastic changes in camping and patrols,I just think early adolescent youth are better served in single-sex groups. There are enough sexual tensions, hormones, social-structure and relationship issues with the boys. Adding girls would be difficult. The developmental differences between 12-year-old girls and boys are significant.

 

Although I have no experience with Venturing, I think much of the problem with that program is that too many crews are still too much like Boy Scout troops. The girls seem like an after thought when they are included at all. (I'd like to see a statistic on the number of male-only crews -- I bet it is high. Around here a large number of crews are all male and simply a way of extending the program for boys.) Things like advancement and OA are constant reminders that this is still BOY SCOUTS.

 

If there is a local option, or if 11- to 14-year-olds are kept separate, the program for them needs to be similar enough that when the move into Venturing, both sexes are on the same footing. While middle school boys and girls may need different paths, somehow they need to wind up at the same place when they move into Venturing.

 

I'm not sure how you solve that. Maybe we have co-ed troops but single-sex patrols? There are girls who like knitting (an maybe a few boys). Keeping the current program and simply adding girls with no adjustments doesn't recognize the varying interests of boys and girls. Just to keep the traditionalist somewhat happy, maybe we keep the Eagle Scout and Silver Award as the top achievement for the boys and girls. (Although that would require a merger/takeover of GSUSA, which isn't what we're talking about here.)

 

One thing which needs to be considered is re-structuring the program ages. (I think there are enough problems in the program now to justify that.) We've often discussed the idea that there seems to be downward pressure on the age of Scouts. Maybe this is the opportunity to address that. I've long felt that Webelos needs to be more closely related to Boy Scout troops than Cub Scout packs or possibly more of a stand-alone program.

 

What if ages 7-9 were co-ed, parallel gender-specific programs for ages 10 through 15; then co-ed again ages 16 through 20? Clearly, I have no professional expertise here. We need smart people who do understand the different developmental stages of boys and girls to study the issue. But I think there is enough wrong with the current system that it is time for a new look.

[shortridge]

Well, this thread has quickly degenerated into the debate Beavah was specifically NOT asking for. That said, I'll enter the fray.

 

LIBob wrote:

 

Look, what we have WORKS for these boys. It works for my son it works for my nephews it will work for my grandsons.

Offer the girls opportunities? Sure. but we should not put what we have at risk to solve someone else's problems.

 

Fill in the blank, and you get a line that could have been spoken by any member of any ruling class or dominant group throughout history: "Offer the _____'s opportunities? Sure. but we should not put what we have at risk to solve someone else's problems."

 

Jim Crow laws worked for the whites. Male-only voting laws worked for the men. But did they work for society? Were they truly the best we could do to improve the lives of all people? Did they reflect the values that we purport to uphold in the Scouting movement? Not hardly.

 

What we have now is a hybrid, trying-to-have-it-both-ways system that stinks of National hypocrisy. The message that BSA is sending to teenage girls is that we welcome them and their money, but as female Venturers, they're still inferior members of the Scouting species - they can't earn the same Eagle award or be inducted into the same Scouting honor society that their male colleagues can. That's silliness to the nth degree, and any smart teenager can sniff it out.

 

"If you can find some way to methodically and permanently exclude girls like A. and leaders like B. above then I'll listen to your case. Until then, I'm not even truly listening.

 

So how do methodically and permanently exclude BOYS like A. and parents like B. from your Boy Scout troop? Seriously, I'm very, very curious about your system.

 

"By 2006 UK scouting awarded more computer MB and more religion MBs than First aid or Camping MBs."

 

Well, first of all, neither the UK equivalents to first aid and camping are required for the Queen's Scout Award, by my reading of the requirements(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Scout). In the U.S., they are required for Eagle, which artificially inflates the numbers. So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

 

[ / sarcasm on ] Secondly, here in the great USA, Computers MB outranks many of the traditional manly, testosterone-filled Scout skill-oriented MBs. In 2007, it whupped such badges as Motorboating, Sports, Astronomy, Hiking (!), Cycling, Bird Study, and Backpacking (!!! - waaay down on the list). So if you're saying that allowing girls into the UK program has made the Brits softer, you'd better take a good, hard look at what we're doing with just boys alone, because it's clearly gotten sissified. Maybe it was due to all those darn women leaders we added back in the day... [ / end sarcasm ](This message has been edited by shortridge)

[bacchus]

"I don't see it happening though until the LDS church backs out of the BSA. Many church members don't see that too far away, maybe 5 years at the most!"

 

What? I must not have met any of those church members because I haven't heard this. The Church is fully behind the BSA and very supportive.

 

If the Church was so against co-ed opportunities, and had such great power over the BSA (as alluded in your comment, and suggested in other threads), then why is Venturing co-ed?

 

Some pre-Venturing program that is co-ed might be a good thing. BSA could even make it an additional program and keep cubs and boy scouts separate for those who want the old-fashioned "boy" program, much like they have the existing overlap with Venturing and Boy Scouts.

[packsaddle]

...or they could allow options for the CO's to choose from. I don't understand why this organization is so dead-set against an 'open market' approach. Is it because they want to keep power consolidated in the hands of just a few of the 'elite'?

[bacchus]

Just so I know who to defend, which organization are you talking about, LDS or BSA? And by elite are you referring to all the Eagle alumni out there?

[packsaddle]

I was writing about BSA. I consider religions to be inherently closed to market economics, by design. By 'elite' I meant the BSA leadership who seems to be resistant to opening things up.

[moosetracker]

Before nailing LDS (and all it's members) to a tree...

 

Just remember it is all supposition, some people have stated LDS will not allow it (are they LDS maybe or maybe not, even if they are LDS, are they a high supior voice of LDS??).. Others just knowing the problems LDS have with mixing gender in activities and taking a stab at what to do to make peace with them..

 

Really this whole thread is supposition. No one started this thread saying "National came out with a plan to go co-ed and LDS threw it in the toilet.."

 

With those who dead set against Girls in Scouting even if it is not their unit but their next door neighbors unit. We don't know if those Nay Sayers are LDS, old fashioned traditionalist of the BSA program, or just don't like girls.. All three of them will have objections, some open minded ones will probably be fine as long as not forced on them. There's others who need everyone to walk the same path as them, because it is the one and only true path.. The one's with the narrow perspectives will just never see the light..

 

Will they only be LDS.. some will, but others will not.. And some LDS people I am sure will bevery open minded about others taking different paths and points of view then them. Those LDS members though may or may not be the majority.

[Eagledad]

>>We don't know if those Nay Sayers are LDS, old fashioned traditionalist of the BSA program, or just don't like girls..

[packsaddle]

"I don't see it happening though until the LDS church backs out of the BSA. Many church members don't see that too far away, maybe 5 years at the most!"

 

jhankins wrote that back on page two. I have no idea what that is all about. I also have no idea who it is you think is trying to nail LDS to a tree.

To me the fundamental issue is whether individual CO's and units can exercise freedom of choice with regard to membership. As I was one of the respondents who mentioned their daughters and precipitated this thread, I would extend membership choice to include female youth members. To the extent that refusal to allow this choice inhibits competition, it tends to go against market forces. I find this ironic for an organization whose membership sometimes claims to embrace what some consider to be 'conservative' values.

I put apostrophes around the word 'elite' to indicate that seems to be a (false) self-image.

[HobcawChaos]

As a GSUSA troop leader, I have been disappointed with the most recent round of changes they have done to the program. Many long time leaders are ignoring it the best they can and hoping it will go away while doing the minimum with it for award pre-requisites. They have been steadily dumbing down the Gold Award while simultaneously making it more difficult to achieve in actual hours and scope. The relative consistency of the BSA program makes it very appealing. The girls in our troop, including my dds, benefit from having down time from boys. In the Disney tweeny land they live in it can seem to be boy craziness all the time. The girls that get that way - it's good for them to take a break; the girls that don't - it's good for them to not feel the pressure. So my inclination would be co-ed in elementary school or through fifth grade with the emphasis on family camping. Then would move to single sex, either whole troop or through patrols that do separate outings but maybe joint meeting programs.

[moosetracker]

Packsaddle I was typing while you & baccus had an exchange. I took your first comment of

 

"...or they could allow options for the CO's to choose from. I don't understand why this organization is so dead-set against an 'open market' approach. Is it because they want to keep power consolidated in the hands of just a few of the 'elite'?"

 

To be in reference to LDS.. so I was just responding that no one really has stated that LDS is dead-set against it..

 

baccus was right to query "who are you refering to?" but, I didn't see that there was something else you could have been referring to.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

[moosetracker]

HobcawChaos -- Thanks for your input.. You are the voice of one side we had not yet heard from so that is important to get the viewpoint from the other side of the fence.