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The Girl Scouts Have Accused The Boy Scouts Of Secretly Trying To Recruit Girls

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Venture Crew is a coed program from the boy scouts, though many venture crews are all girls. My girlfriend's little sister was a part of one, has gone to Philmont multiple times, etc. It's actually a great program, but yeah if you put teenagers together they are gonna have sex. Not like boys aren't having sex with each other in boy scouts or vice versa.

As for the topic at hand, Venture Crews aren't exactly secret so I have no idea what Girl Scouts are on about, BSA have been recruiting girls through Venture Crews for years.
Venture Crews have a minimum age of 14. Girl Scouts don't care about recruitment at that age. What the Girl Scouts, correctly, fear is that the Boy Scouts allowing in more girls actual means the Cub Scouts allowing in girls. Which would devastate the Girl Scouts since both programs bread and butter is the 5-10 year olds.
 

smurfx

get some go again
if i was a parent i think i would prefer my boy join the girl scouts rather than my daughter joining the boy scouts. girl scouts seems like a way better organization.
 
Wait.

Waaaaiiiitttt...

Wasn't there the whole accusation a few months back calling the Boy Scouts sexist for not allowing Girls? There was even a thread on here!

And now this? Damned if they do, Damned if they don't.

The girl scouts DO come off as sexist here, but I do not think this is their intent.

At the most basic level, this is a turf war.

Yea, it's basically livelyhoods at stake.
 
Also as someone who was a member of the boy scouts from elementary through most of high school. What the hell are they talking about that it's specifically suited for boys? That's bullshit. There's absolutely nothing I did that I wouldn't imagine there's tons of girls who could do and would enjoy immensely. I ended up quitting because of the leadership and power trips of some older troop leaders. But I loved what we did there. I miss those experiences constantly.
 
Venture Crews have a minimum age of 14. Girl Scouts don't care about recruitment at that age. What the Girl Scouts, correctly, fear is that the Boy Scouts allowing in more girls actual means the Cub Scouts allowing in girls. Which would devastate the Girl Scouts since both programs bread and butter is the 5-10 year olds.
That makes more sense.
 

massoluk

Banned
I would rather have boys join Girl Scouts for Boys. Here is an organization not beholden to religious nuts, vigorously inclusive to transgender, and have the greatest cookies.
 

Keri

Member
Are the Boy Scouts planning a co-ed program or a completely separate program just for girls? Because I'm pretty sure the Girl scouts are right in stating girls flourish more in single gender activities. A co-ed program mostly means the boys take over and the girls don't get to participate as much.

Also, the Boy Scouts continue to be scummy, if they're slandering Girl Scouts in this process.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Scouts are both genders in most places. It doesn't actually make sense to split them up.
 

StoneFox

Member
Besides selling amazing cookies, what do girl scouts do?
When I was a girl scout we made quilts for old people. I was taught sewing and crafting but I was always jealous of the boy scouts and their camps before I learned how tied to religion it was, especially compared to the GS. Most of our "camping" was more of a giant sleepover in the woods instead of things I wanted to do like fish or hike. But I do give the GS credit for being very open to accepting girls of all types, and the competitiveness I had for selling the most cookies made me quite a saleswoman ;)

Maybe it's different now. :p Hopefully less sewing and more technology skills.
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Someone say thin mint?

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Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
When I was a girl scout we made quilts for old people. I was taught sewing and crafting but I was always jealous of the boy scouts and their camps before I learned how tied to religion it was, especially compared to the GS. Most of our "camping" was more of a giant sleepover in the woods instead of things I wanted to do like fish or hike. But I do give the GS credit for being very open to accepting girls of all types, and the competitiveness I had for selling the most cookies made me quite a saleswoman ;)

Maybe it's different now. :p Hopefully less sewing and more technology skills.
I was in the scouts for 13 years and never had anyone push religion at either scout camps or in the local troop.
 
I was in the scouts for 13 years and never had anyone push religion at either scout camps or in the local troop.
I got a lot of shit in boy scouts for being an atheist, scout master even "warned" other kids parents about me and in general made it an incredibly uncomfortable experience for me constantly try to push the "right" ways of thinking on to me.

Obviously it left me very bitter towards them.
 

sphagnum

Banned
I was a cub scout as a kid. Enjoyed the pinewood derby stuff but I was never outdoorsy so I quit. I think my dad hated it when I quit both that and baseball but I appreciate that he allowed it and didn't try to live vicariously through me.

I wasn't in long enough to get any religious stuff shoved at me.
 
Boy Scouts were stupid in my area as a kid.

I think I was living in Mobile, AL when I decided to join. It was partially at my mother's coercion because she as a single working mother and I assume she thought it seemed like a great way to avoid babysitter fees.

It sounded fun to me, but after waiting around for like 6 months we never did anything practical. We read books and they had this really fucking weird system where they would light a large candle if we were being quiet and behaving.

The promise was that if we were good enough that the candle burned out, we would be taken on a field trip of some sort.

At one point I realized it was a scam and they were actually replacing the candle. I told my mom and had her remove me from the program because it was a waste of time.

A really weird memory that I still have a clear picture of in my mind. Fuck that candle.
 

Cvie

Member
Man i don't remember all this religion shit from when i was a kid but i just looked it up and your supposed to make pledges to god and shit. I'm pretty surprised my mum would've let me do that. I remember being pulled out of religion class in like grade 2 or 3 because she didn't want that.
 

Violet_0

Banned
Boy Scouts were stupid in my area as a kid.

I think I was living in Mobile, AL when I decided to join. It was partially at my mother's coercion because she as a single working mother and I assume she thought it seemed like a great way to avoid babysitter fees.

It sounded fun to me, but after waiting around for like 6 months we never did anything practical. We read books and they had this really fucking weird system where they would light a large candle if we were being quiet and behaving.

The promise was that if we were good enough that the candle burned out, we would be taken on a field trip of some sort.

At one point I realized it was a scam and they were actually replacing the candle. I told my mom and had her remove me from the program because it was a waste of time.

A really weird memory that I still have a clear picture of in my mind. Fuck that candle.
must have sucked for the kids, but that's a pretty funny story like something straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon
 

LogicAirForce

Neo Member
I fucking hated being in Girl Scouts. All we did was sewing, arts and crafts and other boring shit while the Boy Scouts got to go camping and on hikes through the mountains. If some girls would rather do the stuff they do in Boy Scouts then they should be able too.

I didn't know about the religious stuff in Boy Scouts. While I don't remember any religious bs in girls scouts there was certainly a lot of " girls must behave in this way and boys must behave in this way and if you don't you are wrong " which I know is quite popular with Christians.
 

McLovin

Member
They probably shouldn't be targeting Girl Scout members but I don't see a problem with opening it to girls. Not all girls are into girly things. Same thing goes for boys.
 
The Girl Scouts really don't do much, people are assuming it's a better organization to join because you like their cookies. As far as activities go, the boy scouts run laps around them. The Girl Scouts essentially only do arts and crafts and sell cookies, little more than you could accomplish from a trip to Michaels and the grocery store, anything more than that and you run into a lot of red tape and hurdles. That's why parents have wanted to ability to have girls join the Boy Scouts in the past.

The problem the Boy Scouts have is their organization is a time sink. It's very hard to be a boy scout and participate in something else, which in the case of American boys that something else is baseball, football, basketball, soccer, karate, track, etc..... I was interested in being a boy scout but once I found out I wouldn't be able to play baseball I lost all interest.
 

Keasar

Member
Is Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of America the only Scout organizations in USA? If yes, why are they gender separated in the US.?

Also, is at least the Girl Scouts better at not being associated with an asshole church like the Boy Scouts (Mormons) and therefore a more open organization?

As a former Swedish Scout, the American Scout organization perplexes me.
 
what does one do in the boy or girl scouts?

was about to ask the same, can someone summarize in a few words what they do differently? Seems dumb to separate them like that...
Boy Scouts go camping all the times. Girl Scouts do more stereotypical girl things like sewing and selling cookies. Girl Scouts also typically skew younger than Boy Scouts. So if they combined it would be a bunch of much older boys with some little girls. No one is signing up for that.
 
I don't understand why these organizations are segregated by genders in the first place. That sounds like something that should have stopped 50+ years ago. The two organizations should come together and offer the same programmes for everyone
 
Boy Scouts go camping all the times. Girl Scouts do more stereotypical girl things like sewing and selling cookies. Girl Scouts also typically skew younger than Boy Scouts. So if they combined it would be a bunch of much older boys with some little girls. No one is signing up for that.

okay, thanks for clarifying! They should really rethink the whole thing.... there should be at least an older girlscout that do the same, go camping etc...

If not, then they really should let girls into boyscouts too (and change the name with that)! This seems unnecessarly divisive... remind me of schools in japan a bit (sure it's not obligatory like school, but still)
 
okay, so there should be at least an older girlscout that do the same, go camping etc...

if not they really should let girls into boyscouts too (and change the name with that)! This seems unnecessarly divisive... remind me of schools in japan a bit (sure it's not obligatory like school, but still)
You are probably right but I think the side effect would just be no girls would join period. Parents would be fearful of their daughters safety. We still have a lot of hang ups with stuff like gender mixing in the US.
 
Can't agree with the Girl Scouts here. If anything, removed the gendered stuff and allowing anyone to join either organization based on their interests in what's offered would be best.

For what it's worth, my oldest daughter thinks Boy Scout activities sound way better than what she got to do in Girl Scouts.
 

g11

Member
I'm down with this. Co-ed scouting worked out pretty well in the 1995 classic Bushwhacked, starring Daniel Stern.
 

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Boy Scouts go camping all the times. Girl Scouts do more stereotypical girl things like sewing and selling cookies. Girl Scouts also typically skew younger than Boy Scouts. So if they combined it would be a bunch of much older boys with some little girls. No one is signing up for that.
That's not true at all. The Boy Scouts already separate the 5-10 year olds from the older kids with their Cub Scout program. So it would be 5-10 year old girls hanging out with 5-10 year old boys while making pinewood derby cars and going camping with their parents. And both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts skew young since teenagers drop out of scouting heavily in both genders.
 

Alienfan

Member
In most countries the scouting clubs are gender neutral, so I'm really not sure what the problem is. If they're worried about Girls flocking to the scouts, maybe they should change up their own programs
 
The letter also called BSA "reckless" and shortsighted in "thinking that running a program specifically tailored to boys can simply be translated to girls."

I don't know how I feel about this. Sounds a bit too close to "girls shouldn't do these boy things"
 
Girl Scout programs are generally awful because you only need one adult to start a Girl Scout Unit. If they're a good leader, great. If they're a bad leader, the girls are at the whim of whatever that leader wants to do, and most leaders don't want to move past general arts and crafts.
 
Scouting is supposed to be about having fun in and appreciating nature, learning about how to take care of yourself and of assuming stewardship for our environment. Americans just had to put weird religion, sexism and gender roles into it because of course they had to
 

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
I was in the scouts for 13 years and never had anyone push religion at either scout camps or in the local troop.
Yeah, I don't remember ever hitting anything overly religious in my scouting either. But Boy Scouts can be pretty different depending on where you live. Being a scout in Utah, for example, is very different from being one in New York.

Girl Scout programs are generally awful because you only need one adult to start a Girl Scout Unit. If they're a good leader, great. If they're a bad leader, the girls are at the whim of whatever that leader wants to do, and most leaders don't want to move past general arts and crafts.
And even if you have a good leader, they can get sabotaged by the local council or fellow moms. I remember my mom tried to get her troop to go camping once and the closest the council rules would allow her was the girls sleeping one night in a heated enclosed teepee and elevated off the ground. And even then she had another mom fighting it because she viewed it as her sole duty to make sure the girls only did arts and crafts
 
I was in Boy Scouts multiple different times in multiple different cities in Alabama and never had any real religion angle.
Only remote thing is that 2 of the club houses were on church property.
 

Cilidra

Member
Here in Canada, the Scouts (there is 2 groups which is mostly separated by French/English though it not fully the case anymore) have both boys and girls together at all age groups. There is also a separate organization that is girls only (girl guides) at all ages.
The Scouts are more popular but the Guides can have locally popular groups.
 
And even if you have a good leader, they can get sabotaged by the local council or fellow moms. I remember my mom tried to get her troop to go camping once and the closest the council rules would allow her was the girls sleeping one night in a heated enclosed teepee and elevated off the ground. And even then she had another mom fighting it because she viewed it as her sole duty to make sure the girls only did arts and crafts

Yeah, my sisters dropped out because they were bored of doing the same things over and over, and never getting to camp.
 
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