Comment by makewavesnotwar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by makewavesnotwar | Hacker News Reader

makewavesnotwar

Nothing about the Boy Scouts is really gender specific, beyond their requirement to be male that's set to be amended in February.

I don't understand how "Scouts BSA" is a violation of any trademarks that the Girl Scouts might hold. Especially considering the Girl Scouts came after BSA had already been established. If anything I would say that Girl Scouts are encroaching on the BSA's brand identity by calling themselves "X Scouts". When someone talks about being in the Scouts, I tend to take it as the Boy Scouts already.

And there aren't to my knowledge a lot of boys upset that they can't become Gold Star Girl Scouts... There are on the other hand a lot of females that are upset about not being able to become Eagles. [0]

Reading the article it sounds like some evil cookie corporation is pissed that they're losing free child labor rather than genuine concern for the empowerment of young people.

[0] https://www.outsideonline.com/2347221/let-me-become-eagle-sc...

I don't have a strong opinion either way (I'm an Eagle Scout), but the decision to include girls will fundamentally change Scouting.

Guys act differently when around girls. Girls act differently when around guys. This is doubly true for ages 12-17. Whether this is a change for the better or worse is subjective but there is no doubt it is a drastic change.

There is benefit to boys interacting with girls. There is benefit to boys having some time themselves as well.

The current plan is that they separate dens by gender.

Thanks for that info. I had heard mixed things but only when they had just announced it. I think that’s a good call.

That's for Cub Scouts. For Scouts BSA, the current plan is to have boy-only troops and girl-only troops. They can share the same troop number, committee, budget, etc, but only the Scoutmaster has to be different.

I foresee that changing or troops taking initiative and organizing differently unofficially, but that's the current plan.

For the informal organizing part

Alternatively they do have explorers scouts as a coed part, and those are often attached to a regular troop, so they already have this for older scouts.

I really hope so.

Venturing Crews and Sea Scouts, both of which are part of BSA, have been co-ed for a long time. My initial research was not particularly fruitful, but I think that they've been that way since their respective inceptions. There's also no gender-specific leadership or structure.

My son just switched to Sea Scouts after attaining his Eagle Scout rank and my daughter just started Cub Scouts as a Tiger. We've been really impressed with how the Sea Scouts aren't making a big deal about the young women in the program. The only thing we run into is old men calling them "gals". I didn't know that was a pet peeve of mine, but you learn something new every day.

Comparatively, the Cub Scouts are constantly creating awkward situations in relation to the girl dens. Some of that is caused by BSA youth protection guidelines (girl dens must always have a female adult present), but other times it's about over-correcting little boys' behavior in front of little girls. It's still very new and I'm sure that everyone will adjust to something that doesn't require so much effort.

I very much hope that BSA can get out of its own way as more girls move into troops and just take notice of what's been accomplished by their existing co-ed programs.

> Venturing Crews and Sea Scouts, both of which are part of BSA, have been co-ed for a long time. My initial research was not particularly fruitful, but I think that they've been that way since their respective inceptions.

Venturing Crews and Sea Scouts were both part of Exploring in 1969 when the program went co-ed.

> There's also no gender-specific leadership or structure.

There are, actually. Quoting the current edition of the Guide to Safe Scouting:

"Two registered adult leaders 21 years of age or over are required at all Scouting activities, including meetings. There must be a registered female adult leader over 21 in every unit serving females. A registered female adult leader over 21 must be present for any activity involving female youth."

I didn't realize--I only have cub scouts.

FWIW, our new lion den has both boys and girls.

4-H and FFA have long been gender integrated and that seems to work fine. Their operations are similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

> Guys act differently when around girls. Girls act differently when around guys. This is doubly true for ages 12-17.

Troops won't be co-ed.

Can you explain your thoughts behind this a bit more, I am a scout in Denmark and we have not had separation by gender since 1973.

I don't know how different Scouting in the USA is to the rest of the world, but New Zealand, Australia, and the UK (and probably others) Scouting movements have been co-ed for decades. I was a scout for a while, and I don't think it would've been fundamentally different if it wasn't co-ed.

You need to state evidence that acting differently around other genders is a _bad thing_, rather than a net good.

In the era of #metoo, maybe we need to check "boys will be boys" earlier in the process...

>Guys act differently when around girls. Girls act differently when around guys. This is doubly true for ages 12-17. Whether this is a change for the better or worse is subjective but there is no doubt it is a drastic change.

Didn't say it was a bad thing.

>In the era of #metoo, maybe we need to check "boys will be boys" earlier in the process...

But as long as we're over reading things, are you implying boys spending time alone with other boys encourages rape, or that the BSA encourages rape?

I'm an Eagle Scout too and I guess I don't really have a strong opinion because scouting here in CO is fundamentally different in my eyes than what I grew up with in CA.

In my troop, once a year we'd spend one weekend spreading flyers about our annual garage sale, over the following week we'd pick stuff up, then the next weekend we'd use the community clubhouse that was our home-base for meetings for a blow-out garage sale.

We'd clear $15-20k in a week, give everyone who donated a tax slip for their donation, and sit pretty for the rest of the year with regard to our outings. Plus we'd do a clearinghouse in the last few hours of the sale where you could fill a trashbag up with anything and pay $5 for it. (I got stuff like suits, laser prints and antique cameras for <$1)

These massive fund-raisers are why we could finance trips to places like Hawaii or Scotland every few years and had outings like going to Camp Pendleton for paintball wars, plus we were helping the community by moving their junk.

Here in CO, the Boy Scouts do the door-to-door sales thing with over-priced caramel corn and the like.

I'd rather just give the troop $20 than spend $10 on a little bag of popcorn. Maybe that's part of the GS issue, a lot of Boy Scout troops are basically just copying the Girl Scouts' business model.

But I guess what I'm saying is, there are a lot of factors that go into your fundamental scouting experience (I honestly give all credit to the crazy outdoor dads that were in my troop at the time), so I'm trying to observe this transition more than question/judge it.

I can't think of any good reason why the Scout Law shouldn't be ubiquitous in American society.

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