What it Means When There are No Boy Scouts

Before people get too excited, please read the following: https://scoutingwire.org/the-boy-scouts-of-america-organization-name-is-not-changing-and-other-facts-to-set-the-record-straight/

And of greatest importance: There are no co-ed troops being proposed

BUT ... As a former leader of co-ed youth camps and single sex youth camps; both in Scouting and out-of-scouting; in co-ed, the boys and girls tend to work together; just like normal adults do in the world when they want to get a complex task done. When they just want to chill with someone who is kinda going through some of the same life stuff, they tend to do this in single-gender pods; but not exclusively. The benefit BEYOND MEASURE comes from a mixed gender leadership team. Some kids lack "dads", and some lack "mums" in their lives. Sometimes they're looking out for older cousins or aunt/uncle figures. It allows good, positive fostering of people-to-people relationships... I don't deny that there's a loss of spaces today to foster relationships of all kinds. I'd ditch the internet from kids lives before I ditched the "Scout BSA" programme from being offered to girls... Which is all that this is about... Letting girls form troops to follow the same curriculum as the boys.

Eh. I don't buy it.

Friendship, bonding, and camaraderie is not exclusive to boys scouts. Or girls scouts. Or any other club or organization. The idea that any organization has exclusive rights to treating somebody decently and respectfully is ridiculous, as is the idea that introducing "outsiders" will invalidate any teachings to that end. Those places are simply gathering points for common interests, something that is generally important in friendships.
Girls being allowed in scouts won't make boys suddenly unable to form male-male friendships. If scouts was the only place to do that, then presumably guys around the world, who have either aged out or never even done it, are socially inept cesspools with no friends. Pretty sure that's not the case because people can and do make friends in any environment.

Twigga wrote: And of greatest importance: There are no co-ed troops being proposed

And in that case- what are we even talking about?

Thank you Twigga, I have to confess at this point that I did let some of the more sensationalist reports cloud my own judgement and I didn't get all the facts I should have when I used the restructured Boy Scouts as my example. My intention was to open up a dialogue about the increasing scarcity of positive male-oriented non-competitive environments. After reading their own statement, i was wrong to assume BSA was contributing to this scarcity.

Here's the TL;DR version: This issue isn't about equality. Girls have already been welcome in certain Boy Scout Programs for a long time. It will still maintain the ability to foster strong male-to-male relationships just as it will now foster strong female-to-female relationships. It is an issue of survival for a private organization that is rapidly bleeding membership, having difficulty recruiting, and failing at fundraising.

Here's the long answer. As a lifelong Scout and an Eagle Scout, I've got a lot of opinions and insight into this, so bear with me while I try to explain an issue that is much more complicated than most people realize.

First, a little history. The Boy Scouts of America was originally and still is an organization heavily influenced by a military mindset. It was a place to groom young men to be ready to be soldiers. This is not explicitly stated anywhere, but it is a strong undercurrent throughout the program. To this day, the U.S. Military offers an automatic promotion to anyone joining who is an Eagle Scout. Recruiters LOVE Eagle Scouts. This history has established the Boy Scouts as a particularly masculine pursuit. As a private organization, BSA has fought against allowing girls into their core program because of this. They've gone so far as to fight lawsuits in court filed on behalf of girls trying to join, citing their right to discriminate when choosing members because they are a private club. Now that the military is more accepting of women in combat roles, this may be changing.

More recently (last fifty years or so), the Boy Scouts of America have become tightly associated with the Mormon Church (until today's announcement by the church severing ties). The program has always had a religious component to it, but the involvement of the Mormon Church has made it almost compulsory for all young men in the church to also be a Boy Scout. Most Mormon churches have a Boy Scout troop associated with them that they sponsor. They do not have the same expectation of Mormon girls. BSA has also fought lawsuits filed by atheists trying to join while being exempt from saying the word "God" in the Scout Oath. I mention this because the influence of the Mormon Church over the Boy Scouts has traditionally been a driving force for excluding girls and atheists from the program, and this recent decision to allow them in flies directly in the face of this.

Another important piece of BSA history to know is the existence of the Explorer programs founded in 1949. While not the core program that includes rank advancement to Eagle, the Boy Scouts have provided a number of Explorer programs centering around Police, Fire, EMT, Aviation, Business, and the Sea Scout Explorer programs for youth aged fourteen to twenty. These programs are similar to ROTC in that they train young people to prepare them for careers in law enforcement, fire, business, or careers at sea. They have always allowed young women to join and participate alongside young men. This set a long standing precedent for having girls alongside boys in a BSA environment and it has been very successful. This contradicts any argument that girls and boys can't participate and benefit from a BSA program equally despite being physically unequal. Having girls in the program does not make it less masculine.

Finally, there is the striking contrast between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. The BSA program has always been very good at providing an extensive program consisting of outdoor activities. The Boy Scouts run hundreds of summer camps, numerous sea-going vessels, and a massive wilderness area in New Mexico called the Philmont Scout Ranch where Scouts can spend weeks at a time backpacking through the Southern Rocky Mountains. The Scouts hold National Scout Jamborees as well, the most recent gaining attention for Trump's awkward speech and false claim that the Chief Scout Executive of BSA endorsed his ideas. In contrast, the Girl Scout Program offers far less in the way of outdoor programs and infrastructure, but is a fundraising juggernaut. We've all heard of Girl Scout Cookies. In fact, that is all that most of us know about the program. But how do the Boy Scouts fund raise? Good question...

So, with that history in mind, the recent move to change the name and allow girls into the program raises a lot of questions about the motivation for the move. The majority of opinions I have seen online seem to center around pressure on BSA to allow girls in using the argument of equality and being inclusive; that girls are equal to boys and thus deserve to have the same access. While this argument has been made over and over in the past, BSA has always fought strongly against it. So I ask myself, why would they suddenly change now at the risk of pissing off the Mormon Church, their largest supporter, and abandon the stance they have taken all the way to Federal Courts to defend? They've historically excluded homosexuals, females, and atheists with very little apology. Did they suddenly have a change of heart and decide to be feminists or concerned about being inclusive? Not likely. BSA already allowed girls into facets of their program and the Girl Scouts provided an alternative, even if not equal in quality. Ultimately, they are still a private organization that can exclude anyone they choose to.

Why did they do it now? Here's my opinion. The Boy Scouts are going extinct. BSA has struggled to recruit new members for years now and they suck at fundraising. They have been closing camps and losing infrastructure due to lack of funding. The number of lawsuits targeting the organization has grown and the heavy influence of the Mormon Church has scared away a lot of potential members and sponsors. There have been numerous scandals involving hazing, sexual assault, and molestation allegations against Scout Masters, and the recent decision to allow homosexual boys to join and homosexual men to serve as leaders has driven away a huge portion of their conservative base.

The solution is to double your pool of possible recruits by allowing girls in. It opens the program to more paying members and it will likely bring the GSA cookie empire along with it, solving the fundraising woes. The loss of the Mormon Church endorsement will hurt short term, but it will open the program to participation from a more diverse group of religious denominations and the LGBTQ community. All of these factors will help to save a financially dying organization, all while appearing to be a move toward inclusiveness and equality that brings BSA into the new millennium. Whether that is a legitimate motivation for the change or not doesn't matter if they go out of business. Appearing inclusive is icing on the cake that comes with saving the organization from financial ruin. In my eyes, it is a brilliant and timely move that has very little to do with masculinity, sex and gender equality, or the like. It is a numbers game, and BSA will be winning.

MAGNUS wrote: Thank you Twigga, I have to confess at this point that I did let some of the more sensationalist reports cloud my own judgement and I didn't get all the facts I should have when I used the restructured Boy Scouts as my example. My intention was to open up a dialogue about the increasing scarcity of positive male-oriented non-competitive environments. After reading their own statement, i was wrong to assume BSA was contributing to this scarcity.

This right here - I have had and am still having to deal with in my own personal walk.
I did - as many people ( gender nulled , just hearts) have a hard time finding what is what when it comes to what “type” of person I want to be. There came a point in my Jedi ism ( I’m not saying Jedi ism has the answer or is the answer to any ones quest but I so much greatly helped me) when I realized I could display not type but characteristics and character from anywhere. *mind blown.!!! Yea , think about that for a bit - in a faith that insist on you yourself deciding for ones own path and definitions and choices - to choose your own type of characteristics —-NOT limited to religion race sex nationality form or even idea- yea - just wow. In this prossess I did realize as a freedoms some times - I may have to be the first one to do it if I wanna see it . Lots of things as far as male female macho type goes - yea left tat in the dust behind a character that said I wanna be the breakfast maker to master all 101 ways to cook an egg. Force guide and be with us during this chat ... !!!

Not all guys need to spend time around other guys.... but I'm a super introverted focus type of person so I don't need the company of ladies either.
If one wants to get away from women and be with men, fine, do it, but I think its wrong to claim its something all men need.... as for example I don't!!
And now as a result I'm questioning my manliness.... ......see what happened there? It's seems like a category error, and is the mechanism of discrimination, whether intentional or not.

Intentions aside, I think the effort around equality is about accuracy equaling effectiveness more then anything. As I think the evolving system view of it is, instead of using gender to define someones attributes - to rather let the individuals actual existence determine their attributes. Putting the human back into human rights, rather then a dull basic broad and inaccurate model of what constitutes a human.
So from my perspective, its not about diluting difference into a grey beige monotone, but rather zooming in to see the vast array of diverse colours much more clearly.

But yea sure its easier to play paintball all day in the bush with blokes then ladies seemingly.... so considering group work, yes it could tend to people of similar interest and ability. Whether that is tied exclusively to sex and gender is probably the salient question.

I prefer to open it to anyone, and if any segregation is needed then limit it to the individual meeting the requirements of the activity - if a 'person' can do it and wants to, then it shouldn't matter if your favorite color is blue or pink. Heck, some lizards even change sex backwards and forewards based on changes in temperature!!

And I cannot comment on the BSA specifically, but it probably has something to do with the 'g' word again. So while as I see it no-one is forcing guys to do anything different in broad terms, sometimes things happen which changes the way things were done, to achieve a new openness to people who might have previously been denied access or disenfranchised by elements of an established culture or set of rules. Some groups and organizations make an assessment to determine if those things are integral to their organization or not, and if not, seek to remove the impediments to access and growth of that organization as much as possible without altering the nature and function of it. Some countries legislate it to some extent as part of the 'privilege' of participating in the economy LOL.

Which means many societies are de-linking from the norm that there is only gender poles - to be more inclusive of people who choose, or just are, somewhere between those poles. As the most successful societies in history were open to diversity, so when minority groups don't fit in an organization might be keen to examine why and if it can be changed.

But AFAIK 'equality' is about parity, not sameness. I think it just means that those who are in effect outcast are not held down and treated as less just because they don't conform to historical models of normal.... and sometimes that is called equality, but that does not assert sameness IMO,

I ramble on with my usual opinion on this but its too long and repetitive, so I've spoiler'd it;

I was a scout for all of three meetings. My neighbors and schoolmates were my friends. When I would go camping, I'd do it with family or friends who were interested. When I would go fishing, the same. Or biking. Or to a concert. There is a very specific niche that the Scouts fill which I think has merit, but it is neither necessary for learning those skills nor is it necessary for socialization. I'm all for healthy bonding between people of the same sex, such a thing is of vital importance to healthy social development in any person, but to be frank there are copious resources out there for people to involve themselves in. Want your kids to socialize? Send them to school. Get them the books and games they show a lot of interest in. They'll be able to talk to other people about them. Once they find that they get along and have common interests, they will become friends.

I'll be honest, I didn't really have a good time with the Scouts, I found the whole thing kind of plastic (inflexible, not genuine) as a little kid and I wasn't a big fan of being forced to socialize with people around things I didn't have a lot of passion for or interest in. I think it's much healthier to allow children to pursue their own interests and form their own social groups than to force kids into social groups and hope they conform to them. Granted there is a certain age when they can't express that very clearly, but what happened to just taking your kid to a playground and letting them socialize with the other kids without being part of a special group?

Okay, maybe parents just don't want to watch their kids. Fine, I get it. But letting your kid make their own friends solves that, too. The few times I had gone to a scouts meeting I would've much rather have gone to hang out with one or more of my friends that I already had, who I knew had similar interests to me. The kid will want to socialize naturally, it's not something you have to force them into.

As far as coed groups go, children self-segregate. I went to a public elementary school. Very few boys and girls ever talked to each other. It was rare, and people who had many friends of the opposite sex at that time in my school were considered strange. That changed in high school, but for 8 years basically boys and girls didn't interact very much. It seems redundant to try to reinforce something which occurs naturally and with no reinforcement.

The Dude - you make a lot of great points that I agree with. The Scout program is not for everybody, and the people who stay in it for the long haul tend to be the ones who share the same interests that the program promotes. It is less about being a "boy" and more about being interested in topics and activities that are traditionally "boy" oriented. That doesn't mean a girl couldn't or wouldn't share those interests and benefit from it. It is just that girls have traditionally been less likely to share these interests. It is natural that the sexes self segregate based on shared interests, especially at a younger age, so it makes sense that most girls want nothing to do with a group of boys doing "boy" stuff.

If you're interested in camping, first aid, knives, bugs and guns, Boy Scouts might be a good fit for you, but no child of either sex should be forced into the program or conform to it if they don't share those interests.

I was briefly a boy scout before entering into an equivalent type of club that my religion of the time had. The club that I went into, called "Pathfinders", took aspects of both boy scouts and girl scouts, and was co-ed.

Honestly, I'd have to say that the co-ed Pathfinders was a very different experience because of the inclusion of girls, such that I wouldn't suggest that route to BSA. With a co-ed organization you can always break up the boys and girls to talk to them by gender but because Pathfinders wasn't just for boys there was never any focus on boys becoming men. It was more generic. Sports teams, for guys, tend to reinforce stereotypical male behavior. This could be good or bad depending on the behavior. It could also make boys who are not the same feel different and the way that masculinity is portrayed by guys trying to be dominant/alpha males it can lead other kids to question themselves and even their sexuality.

Male Female Dynamics...

Pathfinders definitely had campouts and they were memorable! There is almost no amount of policing, short of sleeping in shifts, that leaders could do to keep the boys and girls apart. Different tents didn't really mean much. I remember we played spin the bottle and one kid even cut a hole in the tent just to sneak in and out the back. Now it's possible that our group was just bad, but the temptation, depending on age, is very real. It's one thing when everyone is just a little kid. It's another thing when they get older and start noticing each other in a different way. Guys start showing off, competing, etc. And when we had campouts with other Pathfinder clubs it was even more interesting.

I'm not at all saying that BSA changing can't be a good thing. It depends on implementation and how many girls join into each group, whether BSA and GSA do some kind of merger, etc. Otherwise, it just tells me that GSA needs to more camping stuff like the boys get to do and the boys need to find other ways of fundraising that involve things that they learn in scouting. I think the weaknesses in both groups are creating a cross over market. Plus you may have a girl scout leader that has a son or a boy scout leader who has a daughter. But I'd rather see each organization simply expand their activities to appeal to more kids instead of assuming that all girls want to bake and all boys want to hunt.