I had mixed feelings when I heard the Boy Scouts were going to start allowing girls to join their ranks. And I’ll admit some of them weren’t too nice.
My immediate thought was this was old news: Back in the 1970s, a girl regularly attended meetings of Boy Scout Troop 1, which was affiliated with the suburban Nashville church in which I grew up. She was never an official member, but she took part in service projects and some field trips (to her brother’s great aggravation).
More recently, teen girls have been allowed to take part in the Boy Scouts’ “Venturing” program, giving them opportunities to explore the outdoors and go on adventures with like-minded teens.
But, being a trained cynic, my immediately snarky speculation was this decision was a move to shore up the Boy Scouts’ ranks in the midst of a downward trend in membership and a raft of bad publicity.
(I thought the same thing of their recent decisions to allow gay and transgender boys to join after years of resistance. Gay or transgender girls were never barred by Girl Scout policy, and the national organization has publicly affirmed their welcome for a decade now.)
But my strongest reaction was fear this move could take away members from the Girl Scouts, which could result in the end of an 105-year-old organization dear to my heart.
I joined the Brownies in second grade and remained in scouting until middle school, when there was no longer an organized troop for me. I had badges down the bottom of my sash and up the back. I went to camp in the summer and learned to make S’mores like a pro.
I admit that by the time I left, though, Girl Scouts were seen as a bit nerdy. However, the organization was changing and growing, getting rid of the silly uniforms we wore in the 1960s and early 1970s, starting the Daisies for girls as young as kindergarten, and promoting themselves as a leadership training program.
I bought cookies each year, partly because they’re delicious, but also because I like to support programs that support girls. I experienced for myself the power of a single-sex education in college, and studies have repeatedly demonstrated the benefits.
So when my daughter had an opportunity to join a Daisy troop as a first-grader, I signed her up. And she has enjoyed it all, from the service projects to the cookie sales, from the close friendships to the opportunity to learn leadership and business skills. I chaperoned field trips when I could and served as one of the troop’s Cookie Moms, filling our dining room with cartoons just as my own mother had when I was a girl.
This year, the Scout troop has served an important support role for my daughter and her friends. While all the girls started out together at the same elementary school, they now are split between two middle schools. Keeping the troop together has allowed them to maintain those supportive, long-term friendships while they’re navigating a new world.
I liked the idea of my daughter having this kind of safe place, and I figured Boy Scouts probably enjoy an opportunity for single-sex socialization as well. But I have been irritated with the Boy Scouts in recent years because of their slowness in adapting to modern times and their exclusion and discriminatory practices. And I worried that their decision to accept girls meant a weakening of two single-sex character-building organizations in favor of a watered-down co-ed program.
I was almost ready to write an impassioned column on this subject when I decided to run it by my 11-year-old Cadet, a child with great self-assurance, confidence and strong character.
She thought it was cool that girls will be able join Boy Scouts if they want to, although she chafed at the idea that they still had “boy” in their name. She thinks of Boy Scouts as more of an outdoors organization and has many friends who like those activities and might prefer that organization.
I pressed her a little more, though: Does she see any advantages to having just girls in her troop?
Not really, she said, seeing her troop not so much as a “girl power” organization as a group of like-minded friends. Some of her friends who are boys might want to join the Girl Scouts if they enjoy the kind of activities in which her troop participates, she said.
“What we’re interested in doesn’t depend on our gender, Mom,” she said.
That’s when it hit me that what was really bugging me was I assumed this change in the Boy Scouts meant the eventual end of Girl Scouts. And why was I assuming that?
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Today’s kids don’t see the kinds of barriers that my generation saw (in what my daughter terms “back in the nineteen hundreds.”) They live in a world with more diversity of races, cultures, sexual orientations and gender identities. They tend to take people as they are rather than by the labels society puts on them.
The Boy Scouts say they have had years of requests from families and from girls to take part in their programs, and I’m sure that’s true. Looking at their website now, you will find a bigger diversity in the photos and more family-oriented activities designed to appeal to some of these folks.
Meanwhile, the Girl Scouts offer programs that appeal to the girls of today, programs like business management and STEM activities, projects that encourage girls to speak up for themselves and get involved in their community. No longer are they simply the female version of a male organization, and shame on me for clinging to that outdated notion.
Surely, in this world, we have room for all.
Susan Keaton is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Naperville. You can reach her at [email protected].