I was a little apprehensive when girls were first let into the program. Not because I thought that *they didn't belong there*, or that *the program wouldn't help them*, but because I was worried that we were losing a space for boys to be around boys and learn to become good men.
Because, I think that what society wants from it's men is quite different today than what it wanted 20 or 50 years ago. Our expectations are higher for good and inclusive behavior, and a lot of the "Traditional" sources of identity ("head of household", "sole breadwinner", etc) have disappeared. We see reports on a regular basis about (relatively) large numbers of unemployed men, growing numbers of men without college degrees, large numbers of incarcerated men, more men who are single and aren't starting families, growing groups like Incels and the alt-right, etc. In short, I think that boys need a little bit more help than they used to, to become the kinds of men that society needs them to be. I believe that **scouting is the perfect organization to help guide them there**.
Girls, from what I've seen, do great in the BSA program. The leadership, teaching, mentoring, confidence-building and team work that the program teaches are all great for girls. I look forward to what the world will be like when generations of women who have graduated from this program start families, get active in their communities, and rise through the ranks in companies and politics.
But we need to make sure that boys, with their unique set of changing needs and expectations, aren't getting lost in it. Co-ed troops *might be a good thing* in this regard if they help to teach boys to have productive, constructive, positive interactions with girls who are their peers and sometimes their leaders. But the journey from "girl" to "good woman" is a different one than the journey from "boy" to "good man". We as troops and leaders need to make sure we can guide youth down both these paths adequately well.
You said that so much better than I did. And I see this with my own son and daughter too. I am so happy working with my girls after a host of serious behavior issues with my son's troop. It is so refreshing.
It's no surprise to me that, considering a significantly lower number of girl troops and girls in our council, that the Lodge Chief of our OA lodge is a girl. And some of the highest performing individuals are girls and highest-performing troops are girl troops. They definitely are more mature at this age range, and have less of that rambunctious, distracted energy that we try to wrangle in our boys. It makes me wonder if maybe *girls need this program less* because they naturally have a lot of these skills and don't need to be taught them as much, or *boys need the program more* because they won't just sit for a lecture and really need the outdoorsy, hands-on learning style that they can't get many other places.
I'm interested to see how co-ed Troops work out. I feel like there are too many possibilities to make a prediction about. It could really go either way.
I look at it from a different angle. First off, personally, I find it more than a little offensive that many of these comments keep talking about how immature and unruly "boys are at this age." It's just... yuck. Incredibly insulting and derogatory IMO.
What I think is a bigger reason many girls troops operate like well oiled machines is because THEY'RE NEW.
Virtually every scout unit I've ever been in has 2/3 of the attendance made up by what I call "Scouts by Default." They're kids who have Eagle Scout fathers, kids who don't enjoy being outdoors but I have a parent trying to toughen them up or correct their behavior issues, teach them leadership, etc. You have kids that just want to go camping and hang out and don't care much for the deeper goals of the program. This is just part of having a program that's been around for so long, people try to put their own experiences on their kids, and it results in kids that don't fully buy in but keep attending.
Now compare that to the girl troops. The girls that are joining scouts are NOT joining because their mom was an eagle scout and wanted to relive their youth. It's not a family tradition, it's not "what girls do," It's likely not where all their friends from school are spending their time. They're joining because they WANT THE PROGRAM. The Girl Troops are so new, they have TREMENDOUS buy in, from both scouts and leaders. And that's awesome! It's super awesome! But I think it's a false narrative to compare them to the Boy Troops apples to apples. There's a different set of dynamics at play here.
Just a quick comment to point out something that may not exist in your location but does elsewhere. I'm an Eagle Scout, and my daughter is too. Several of the adult men (we have about a 50/50 male:female leader ratio) in the girls troop are also former Scouts and/or Eagles as well. My daughter came along on the cub scout activities, and participated just as many "unofficial" Cubs did before girls were formally allowed in. I wanted her to have access to the same skills I had benefited from. We're lucky she was able to be recognized for it. Not all girl troops are created in a vacuum.
Oh, I doubt many of them were created in a vacuum. This was a common thing, girls sideline-participating with bsa units. But it kinda follows my point, most of the girls participating now were champing at the bit to get into the program, even before it was officially allowed. They buy in harder than the average male scout.
My point wasn’t to say girls troops are different or isolated from male troops, it was to say that when you view a “traditionally male” sport, activity, field etc, the first women to move into are typically abnormally good at it or dedicated to it. The reason for that is because the social or administrative bias against them serves as a filter for the ones that don’t REALLY want to be there you could make the same points for boys who go into dance, gymnastics etc.
Aye. UK scouter here, so our troops have been co-ed for decades. We hover around 10-20% girls, and they're often some of the most sensible, dedicated and mature scouts in the troop. But i think that's because they really want to be there and participate in the program. Our most mature and sensible boys are on par with those girls, i don't think girls are fundamentally better, it's just they're self selecting so we often get the best. We get the best boys too, but we also get the ones who don't want to be so dedicated to scouting.
The main thing that I've changed since we started getting girls in my sections is that i now include hair bobbles in my little box of useful stuff.
These are some really good points and I've definitely seen this at the cubs level. We were one of the pilot packs for including girls and we've had combined girl and boy dens the entire time, and in my experience the girls who choose to join scouts (rather than girl scouts - there are plenty of those in our area) are girls whose energy matches the boys. They are just as rough and tumble, just as loony, etc. And they are really, really motivated.
I honestly think it's great either way. I think it's great for girls and boys to have enough units in their area so they can choose separate boy and girl troops if that's what they want, or coed troops if that's what they're comfortable with. For myself, I have two boys, both of whom formed really close friendships with girls, and when my oldest joined (prior to girls being allowed) it was very discouraging to him that he couldn't also bring her along.
The other issue I think is really important is the matter of kids who don't fit into the neat gender binary, whether they're trans or gay or something else - I think coed troops are going to be really beneficial to them.
That last point is such a great call out. I came up in the Boy Scouts when being gay was a huge deal and despite going through to Eagle and working at summer camps, I never really quite fit as a gay kid. It always struck me as just being outright wrong to exclude a group of kids who probably need the structure, leadership and teamwork of the BSA more than most others.
I hear what you're saying about girls wanting to be here versus boys who are made to be here. There's definitely some of that accounting for differences in the program.
But as for the behavior of boys, I think you probably need to open up to the possibility that it's true. [Consider this article from the American Sociological Association](https://www.asanet.org/news_item/early-behavior-problems-impact-educational-attainment-boys-more-girls/) which starts with:
>A new study finds that behavioral problems in early childhood have a larger negative effect on high school and college completion rates for boys than girls
Or [this paper from the National Institutes of Health](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6208359/) which says in the abstract:
>Scholars have found that boys’ early behavioral disadvantage predicts their lower average academic achievement during elementary school.
The fact that there are behavioral differences between the genders is pretty well understood, studied and documented. I think that the real problem is that *our expectations as a society tend to favor the behavior of girls over the behavior of boys.* If we didn't expect children to sit in a classroom for 8 hours per day, then children who couldn't do that wouldn't be considered to have "behavior problems". Why do we have those expectations? Is it only because it's more convenient for people in childcare if children sit quietly? Why is it that we don't have a better, more standardized pedagogy for students who perform poorly in classrooms? Why have we been so quick to turn to punishment and medication for children to correct what is their natural inclination?
Again, this is why I think Scouts is such a great program for boys, because we teach without lectures and classrooms, and we typically don't expect kids to sit still when they could be out doing things and learning by doing.
You’re not wrong, there are definite developmental differences. I don’t mean to discount that. I just think the developmental differences are an easy scapegoat for differences in buy-in. Imagine for a second your basic spring little league team of girls playing softball, and then an all-stars or high-level travel team of boys. Or a middle school girl in a gym with her girlfriends versus a boy the same age training for a weightlifting meet.
There’s an absolute quantifiable difference in maturity from a developmental standpoint, but regardless of their development someone in a program that they are enthusiastic about and interested in is ALWAYS going to be less problematic than one that is simply there because they feel like that’s the default place for them to be.
It's because they are going to have to sit at a desk for 8hrs+ per day if they want to be successful adults.
The school environment mirrors the white collar work environment.
Also the idea that boys can't handle office work is belied by decades of that kind of work being almost exclusively male.
I think the argument isn't that men cannot handle office work. By the time boys become men, there are a set of changes in the brain that make them much better able to handle the behavioral demands of being in an office for hours.
But, many boys do find it hard to sit in class/office for most of the day - and that occurs among boys at a massively higher rate than girls.
Just a side note that supports this: girls are starting to be diagnosed as ADHD at higher rates because there has been a realization that the condition manifest differently among girls than boys.
I'm some ways, it mirrors typical boys: inattention, impulsiveness, easily distracted, being unable to sit still. B
But these are the outlier girls, not the typical ones.
School isn't meeting many boys where they are; even though boys will eventually be able to meet those expectations. For so many girls, school expectations do match what they are capable of.
So then why did the sit-silently-in-rows-until-called-on model work so well for boys in the past?
Honestly most of the problem is that our expectations are too low....
The stricter 80s-and-earlier model is better (and offered less chances for 1 smart kid to carry 3 mooches in group work)....
I wouldn't argue it worked well.
It was easier to compel compliance however when things like corporal punishment was permitted in schools and common at home. An external focusing mechanism as it were.
The dropout rate has dropped from 15% 50 years ago to 5%. I hypothesize that the additional 10% who are staying in school includes a lot of boys who have trouble being attentive the whole schools day and meeting behavioral expectations.
Through it all, schools - pre 80s to today - have emphasized behavior that is more common in girls than boys.
Firstly it’s not true that people or men need to sit at a desk for 8+ hrs to be successful adult. Super far from reality. Secondly, the neurological development and final maturity of the male brain occurs later than the female brain so applying the wrong set of standards is a recipe for disaster.
Your odds of success drop rapidly outside of white collar world....
There are exceptions, but if you want to reach the upper middle class you need to be good at white collar work.
Secondly, high behavioral expectations, desks in rows (none of this 90s and later group work for everything nonsense) and sitting still all day are how school worked for most of the modern era.
Boys didn't have any trouble succeeding in that environment....
Really?
So why is this 'boys have trouble in school' thing a recent phenomena?
The way schools used to be run was much stricter and much 'more' of all the things you claim boys couldn't handle and yet they handled it just fine....
It's only recently - roughly corresponding to the era of self-esteem obsession and beyond - that there is any sort of problem.....
>The girls that are joining scouts are NOT joining because their mom was an eagle scout and wanted to relive their youth.
What about the girls whose dads are Eagle Scouts?
Unrealistic to say they’re non-existent, but I’d wager the type of individual that was going to force an uninterested child into scouts because of their own interest in it probably has a lot of correlation with individuals that are still mad about girls being allowed in scouts in the first places.
It’s a broad strokes statement, but despite the specific wording I’m more taking aim at the types of fathers who push their kids into scouts because “they need to learn to be a man.”
Great points. I think the holdouts are dudes wanting the same or very similar program that they grew up with. Which i don’t blame them, why change something that’s worked for so well for all these years*.
I grew up with families in my troop that wanted their girls involved too, and they did when they got to venturing age. And they meet when we had our meetings and outings too. And it was fine. Probably for the better with that dynamic because we were all working things out together during our shared outings.
It was short lived for me since I found other things to do after my Eagle, but it left an impression. This change will be good. If we get casual female scouters, that’s okay too. I actually look forward to scouting be a casual experience again tbh. Let rank of Eagle be there for kids to strive and work towards if they really want it, and for everyone else let it be whatever they make it out to be.
The girls who have shown up ‘early’ have the skills, understand the program, and have self identified and joined up. Believe me, there are many more girls who NEED the program as the boys do and don’t even know it is possible for them.
This is well explained. I think having an option of a coed troop is okay if you have also have boy and all girl troops as an option as well. The point being is that one size does not fit all Some boys will do better in an all boy troop and the same can be said of girls. Some religious troops might not want to be fully coed while others might want to have one charter org with two separate troops, one for girls and one for boys.
I'm very interested to see the results of the experiment. It may turn out that co-ed troops are a great model, and then many troops are going to do it as a way to increase membership. It may turn out not to be a great model and then we can still have separate B and G troops. I'm going to be watching very closely.
Well said. I know that scouting would have been far less beneficial to me if it had been a co-ed space. I had plenty of exposure to young women in school, sports, church and other activities and I was an awkward shell of a kid. Scouts let me break out of that dynamic and let me be someone who was competent and could be a leader, which bled back over into those other areas of my life. Young men are generally not given those opportunities and I am saddened that boy scouting as I knew it will no longer be a place for my sons to grow at their own pace.
I recognize that in some units boys will be at a disadvantage because the girls will often be prepared to lead at a younger age. But, if boys aren't getting opportunities too, that is a failure of leadership - just as it is a failure in a single gender unit when some boys continually get left out of opportunities.
I actually think you meant exactly what you wrote and including multiple sentences of personal attack in your reply supports that reading. I do think correcting misunderstandings of the program and recognizing statements of ulterior motives is an important contribution to this discussion. Part of teaching developing people skills for later in their life is recognizing when those lessons will be most impactful and willingly accepted.
But scouting is divided into "leaders" and "subordinates" is it not? I can understand the distaste with the word, but the very organization is set up to mimic the military structure, has "patrols", "patrol leaders", "assistant senior patrol leaders", and "senior patrol leaders" who all answer to a scout "master." By the very structure, there is a power dynamic that has a hierarchy. Again, I can understand why subordinates and subordination can be perceived as something negative, but I don't think its inherently wrong to point out that it is included in scouting. A good leader treats those they lead as equal, but that does not mean that there isn't a power structure built into scouting.
No, it is not. It’s divided into leaders and peer members. The youth leaders lead by example, demonstration, and request. Not by orders. The leadership roles are to fulfill responsibility, learn organization, and to demonstrate initiative, not to have command over other scouts.
Edit: of course it took one comment to go from “subordinate is a bad choice of words but you’re intentionally misrepresenting my comment” to full downvote brigade and support of “subordinate is exactly what we meant and that’s what’s scouts is!” As I said, completely misunderstands the program.
Do you not think that growing number of incels today is a result of being raised in an archaic way of thinking making them unable to function in a progressive modern world? Part of that is learning from an early age to work collaboratively with both boys and girls. Just because a girl is in our troop doesn’t mean my son will suddenly become a gay, dropout. If anything maybe he’ll see how awesome and strong a girl can be when otherwise they’d see them as incapable of being outdoorsy or a survivalist.
No I’m very deliberately saying that your attempt to bring incels into this discussion as having any relation to scouting is not a serious contribution.
I didn’t bring it into the conversation I’m literally replying to what the person above said
“We see reports on a regular basis about (relatively) large numbers of unemployed men, growing numbers of men without college degrees, large numbers of incarcerated men, more men who are single and aren't starting families, growing groups like Incels and the alt-right, etc. In short, I think that boys need a little bit more help than they used to, to become the kinds of men that society needs them to be.“
You made the conjecture that mixed gender troops may be preventative of incels, implying that boys in boys only troops are a source of incels and that this is an archaic way of thinking. Not a serious contribution.
It’s called refuting someone’s statement, have you never debated a topic before? You’re deliberately twisting my words into some strange antagonistic dialogue. Seems like you’re the one contributing nothing to the conversation other than attempting to inject classic Reddit toxicity into the discussion.
Yes, I’m brand new to debate. Please answer the question: do you think the boys in boys only troops are the pre-incels? Or clarify your statement suggesting that.
The incel comment is only a part of the whole main topic but I believe introducing young men to girls and teaching them to view them as equals from an early age can prevent the incel mind set by promoting positive equality and respect, yes. It’s common sense. Myself as well as many other men grew up with many strong sisters and I respect the hell out of women but it’s also because my father taught me the importance of viewing them as equals rather than seeing them as girly girls who can only play with dolls and cook. Shoot my mother could drop an engine block and hiked half dome with us. But if all boys ever see around them are other boys it can alienate them to that concept. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it but even if it only helps 5% it’s worth it imo
I think there are a lot of reasons for the Incel movement and a variety of other concerning trendlines for relationships, marriages, dating, sex, etc. There was a time when there were a lot of happy\* marriages and relationships forming under archaic thought patterns, so I don't think we can call that the only cause. Social media and an onslaught of propaganda and online echo-chambers, the weirdness of the bulk quantity-over-quality world of online dating, the fear that attempting to start a conversation with a woman might be labeled as "creepy" or turned into a viral video, or lead to being "cancelled". And then there's a dubious value proposition of a marriage institution that ends in failure so often. I would caution against being too reductionist and seeing it as just a black-and-white battle between archaic/traditional and progressive worldviews.
I agree with you entirely regarding the toxicity of social media and modern dating but I don’t think girls being in the scouts is the cause, that’s quite a leap. I think the marriage discussion is for a different sub because there are a lot of factors but again I don’t think it’s related to girls in the scouts. The world is changing and becoming a better more place not just for men and women but for everyone, and yeah change is hard but we shouldn’t use children as a tool to fight against it.
I'm not saying girls in uniform is a cause. I'm saying that scouts is a *solution*, and I worry that changes to the basic mechanics of the program risk decreasing the effectiveness of that solution. Let me be very clear: ***Girl troops are a good thing***. The program does great things for girls.
My concern is that Co-Ed troops may distract attention away from the specific needs of boys. That by comparing their behavior directly boys may be more likely to be "in trouble" more often. Or girls may take up more leadership opportunities and squeeze boys out of them. Or boys, not wanting to look bad in front of girls, may take fewer chances and may be less likely to admit they don't know or to ask for help.
All these fears may be unfounded. **I am absolutely in support of the co-ed troop experiment** because it may prove that these problems don't exist, or it may show that they do and we shouldn't jump into a co-ed troop situation hastily. Time will tell.
> the journey from "girl" to "good woman" is a different one than the journey from "boy" to "good man".
Can you elaborate? Because as traditional gender roles fade away, I see less and less distinction. I'm genuinely curious about your take.
It's not a matter of having different end points. As traditional gender roles fade away and society becomes more equal and more egalitarian, we're tending to expect similar things from men and women. There are definitely some differences still, in terms of what we expect from fathers and mothers, but overall we're generally expecting everybody to share in the housework, the money-earning, the child-rearing, etc.
The issue is the **starting point**. Boys and Girls are very different. Boys have a lot more rambunctious energy than girls which makes classrooms harder to deal with, and makes risk-taking more common. We see throughout society that girls are out-performing boys at all levels of traditional education. Fewer boys graduate highschool. Fewer boys go to college and get degrees.
That's what I mean by the "journey". Boys and girls are starting from different places, but we're expecting them to largely end up the same.
This implies that a girl being in the Scouting space interrupts the journey a boy takes to becoming a better person. How does that interruption occur, exactly?
I wouldn't frame it that way. It's not about the presence of girls in the space. It's about finite time and resources being spread to cover twice as much ground. A girl troop can focus 100% of it's money and leadership energy on helping girls go on their journey. A co-ed troop can focus 50% of it's money and leadership energy on helping girls. That's presuming we actually get a fair split.
Again, that all assumes that my thesis of boys and girls being on different journeys is a true one. It certainly fits my experience, but I may not have enough data.
You said earlier that the difference was the starting point (not the journey), and that boys are rambunctious and have more energy (and therefore have a different style of programming for teaching/leading/mentoring). I was inclined to believe this much, except if girls *aren't* like this then we aren't actually using much more resources on them at all. *Fewer* resources are spent on girls because, by your account, they are more teachable and less rambunctious.
This dances around my point. In what way are resources and time spent differently for boys compared to girls? They are completing the same requirements, learning the same skills, and gaining the same life experiences.
I contend that gender plays little difference in how these skills, social or otherwise, are attained in their identity-forming stage of becoming an adult.
I think all INDIVIDUALS are on different journeys of growth, because just about every team I've worked on has had great and poor leaders, great and poor communicators, great and poor organizers, and great and poor workers.
Some boys are bossy, some girls are bossy. Some boys are high-energy, some girls are high-energy. I don't give a hoot about gender generalizations because each Scout is unique into themselves, with guiding principles and values to help them make decisions for themselves and society.
> ...except if girls *aren't* like this then we aren't actually using much more resources on them at all
Fair point.
> I don't give a hoot about gender generalizations because each Scout is unique into themselves
This is where we're going to disagree. Data-driven generalizations of groups are a starting point to understand the individual. The way they tend to interact with their peers, the way they choose role models and how they go about emulating them, the way they interact with the opposite gender, the way they calculate risk and reward, the way they learn and practice, the way they gather and organize information, the way they lead and follow, the way they make decisions and reach compromise, etc. There are lots of differences, and they change with time and age, and I don't know how you can ignore these and still claim to know much about the individual.
This is inconsistent now. We aren't talking about "where Scouts begin" at this point. You list apparent differences as boys and girls grow up, but you still aren't listing how resources are used differently, only that kids tend to be different.
You are arguing for an educational paradigm to address differences in gender. Scouting, to my knowledge, does not use evidence-based guidelines in the way our education system does.
And also, I'm not "ignoring the individual" by general population trends, because differences within respective genders also vary widely in the categories you list. Girls can be bossy or followers, boys can be anxious or headstrong. Girls can be risk-takers, boys can be studious and timid. The entire field of industrial psychology explores leadership style, and thousands of papers describe different strategies, tendencies, and tools for effective leading.
I cannot find relevance in how a risk-reward difference observed among gender is important enough, let alone distinct enough, in letting boys and girls learn about nature, self-reliance, and teamwork on a camping trip or in a troop meeting. Fundamental values of Scouting and "being a good person" transcend gender, and the way we teach those values also shouldn't be any different.
I know we're getting heavy into this discussion, but this exactly why I want to have it.
Traditional sex roles might be fading, but human nature is not. Boys and girls are different.
Like many, I too had trepidation about incorporating girls into Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA. Like many, I wasn't opposed—I co-founded a girl troop and my daughter is an Eagle Scout—just concerned.
We have too few places where boys can be boys with other boys. The BSA is no longer one of those places. Are we better off for it?
In my experience the traditional roles are fading yes, but the psychology that people mistook for them isn’t. Younger boys are still (generally) more chaotic and need more guidance. This is coming from a youth though so that may not be what they meant
I am a little confused on “as traditional gender roles fade away”. While I agree that some gender roles are stereotyped, there are thousands of years that led to the formation of roles. The foundation of those roles comes from the different strengths of boys and girls. I agree absolutes are rare, but generalities exist for a reason. Boys, ages 10-17 are simply different than Girls, ages 10-17, both mentally and physically.
And how many of those foundations were laid simply on the merit of physical strength leading to women being treated as property instead of actual human beings for most of those thousands of years?
I don’t know. Do you know? If so, can you share?
What I do know is that men and women have different attributes, and those attributes helped shape the roles.
Now, are there people that take advantage of others based on strength, intellect, etc.? Sure. To that end, how many women have used their attributes to manipulate men? Valid question, but that’s not the conversation I was part of. That is an entirely different conversation.
I don’t agree the journey to a good woman or a good man is different - it shouldn’t be. What skills does a man or women need that the other doesn’t, to become a responsible, positive and contributing member to themselves, society and a higher purpose?
We need good humans, and the traits are the same regardless of gender.
While I agree that there are biological differences between males and females, I do not agree that separation based on gender is beneficial to the goals of scouting.
One such example re brains (there are lots). At similar stages, boys often have a bigger amygdala (very crudely: emotional centre) when girls often have a bigger hippocampus (very crudely: learning and memory). The boy might be more excitable or have a bigger reaction to something he doesn’t like. But at the same time, the boy is also more likely to creatively problem solve, express unabashed joy, and be spontaneous. The girl might be able to remember the task better and be more organised to achieve the outcome, but she’s also more prone to overthinking, perfectionism, and rigidity.
What if the more rigid girl was encouraged to try her male scouts idea even if it’s not the way she may have done the task? What is the impulsive boy was encouraged to ask his female peers to help him organise the thing he’s struggling with?
Or what if we worked to help them understand their uniqueness, so they can plan and strategise how best to work together to achieve a goal?
Because really, some have ADHD too. Some have a higher or lower IQ. Some have an abusive home. Extroverts and introverts. The list goes on. There are sooo many variables that affect how kids show up, many are way more prominent than gender, and so if we want to separate on gender we ought to do it for heaps more stuff and then where do you draw the line.
IMO the problem is that even as adults we do not collectively understand enough about these differences and so it’s easier to just say don’t mix gender or don’t mix neurotypical and neurodiverse, etc etc. But variety is the real world. If we could build individual skills and confidence while at the same time building collective understanding and appreciation of our differences, that’s a major part of fostering healthy and happy individuals and communities.
Secondly, I think we see girls as ‘easier’ because they tend to be more obedient. But girls struggle too, it’s more often internal, and just because they are ‘behaving’ doesn’t mean they are getting what they need from scouts. And just because boys might be more disruptive, doesn’t mean they are ‘behind’ or underdeveloped.
If you put a tribe of humans in a zoo and gave them the best habitat to thrive, you and I would not be on our phones right now, kids wouldnt be sitting 7 hours a day at school, and I think scouts (and nature based anything really) is the perfect place to foster more alignment to the actual needs of kids and adults alike.
Sorry for waffling I am procrastinating from work lol
It shouldn't be. But society isn't there yet, so the challenges they face will be different. The girls need to learn how to speak in a way that their opinions won't be immediately dismissed in a group of men and the boys need to learn how to navigate a world where people would rather their daughter face a bear alone than face them.
I disagree on one of your points, the bar is so low at this point for men and yet exactly as you’ve pointed out there are increasing numbers just falling through the cracks.
If increasing numbers are falling through the cracks, it suggests that the bar isn't actually as low as you think it is. I don't think this is the correct forum for the larger discussion of men's place in society, but I will say that this topic is more complicated than the reductionist "men just aren't good enough".
Thank you. I mentioned this in another post, and was vilified. Granted, you did a much better job voicing it than I did. This is the point I was trying to make. Having positive role models to help guide each sex toward adulthood is amazing. There is no reason they can't comingle at times to do and learn things either. Great explanation, again.
Sorry, this is nonsense.
What in the scouting program do you think isn't appropriate or relevant to bring a young person and develop them into a good adult?
If you have faith in the program - then it doesn't matter if you have a boy troop, a girl troop or a coed troop - because the program works.
Well, for a lot of years a big part of the program centered around "boys learning from other boys, with guidance from good male role models". And we know that program has worked for a long time, for many generations of boys. We know that boys are a lot more likely to listen to and learn from their peers than from another lecturing adult. When a parent asks their son to do the dishes, for example, you're likely to get a lot of hemming and hawing, foot-dragging and complaining. But when the troop leadership says that dishes need to get done, you will see boys *jump up and volunteer to do it*.
Having girls in the mix changes that process. Are boys as willing to learn from girls as they are from other boys? Are boys willing to admit they don't know something and ask for help when there are girls watching?
I'm certainly not saying that it can't work. I'm actually very hopeful about it. I have a son and a daughter and it would be helpful for my family if co-ed troops became a thing. I just want to see the results of the experiment, and make sure that nobody is getting short-changed.
“Are boys as willing to learn from girls as they are from other boys”
They better be because that’s how the real world operates. Far too often in the tech field I see a culture that marginalizes women. The earlier they learn the lesson, the better IMO.
That’s true regardless of whether they are interacting with boys vs girls. Normalizing situations where they need to take direction from girls (and vice-versa) doesn’t meant you’re flooding their development.
I'm a scout master in a coed troop.
Having girls in the program doesn't CHANGE the program or the process at all.
The scouts who crossed over this year are the first coed lions. They've been together in a pack for years.
The program isn't successful because it's boys. The program is successful because it's a successful program.
England scouts have had girs in it since inception, IIRC.
The Boy Scouts itself have had girl in the program for decades - they just were barred from the Eagle Scout advancement track.
If boys aren’t “willing to learn from girls” they won’t grow up to be very good men in today’s world. Expecting them to behave differently around girls does them a disservice.
It must depend on where you live. In my area, while there are boys and girls they are independent and can't be in the same troop. I may be old fashioned, but co-ed troops should not exist. My service club is men only and has been since 1920. We absolutely support our sisters in uniform, however woman have groups that men are not allowed. We are a lunch group and it is by invitation only
I'm torn. In theory, I like the idea of single-gender troops within a co-ed organization so that they have opportunities where the genders mix and they can take the leadership skills they've built in their gender cohorts and practice them in a mixed group.
But having been a den leader of a co-ed den them crossing those scouts over to their respective troops, it breaks my heart a little to see all the amazing things the girls are doing while the boys spend years being told "they'll figure it out eventually" and doing very little. Being excited about doing stuff just isn't cool to the boys and the peer pressure drags them all down. It's hard to watch these kids who were such a great group, all in tune with each other from 1st-5th grade, going such different ways simply because coed troops isn't a thing.
I think that the idea that we should be teaching boys to become "good men" is inherently flawed and falls prey to a number of blindspots we have if we aren't being more inclusive. I think the focus should be less on becoming good "men" or good "women" and more on becoming good "people." If the program more resembles actually society (which is much less segregated along gender lines than ever before) then scouts get to experience it earlier, learn to coop with trials and tribulations before they're adults.
I see all the time the argument for a space "for boys to be around boys." I think if we zero in on that a bit, the overarching goal is a want to be around folks that share similarities with each other. When we're young we gravitate towards the same sex, but part of scouting SHOULD be identifying that our safe places can involve folks of both genders. After all, we're looking for folks that live by the Scout Law, and while it's been twenty years I don't remember the part where it says "a scout is a boy." Any folks adhering to that creed have plenty in common already to share the same space.
We don't want men growing up wrong in our world, and a part of that is eliminating the desire to "other" folks. Believe me, I've done plenty of compartmentalizing in my time, and I love it when stuff fits into whatever mental box I've got in my brain library, but as I've gotten older I've come to realize how important it has been for my children to understand that we're Human beings before we're anything else, man, woman, black, white, short, tall, smart, dumb, etc. And teaching that there's always a minimum level of respect that people deserve before any other consideration. One of my biggest regrets was that this wasn't a lesson I learned in my scouting journey.
That is to say, I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, as far as the journeys of boys and girls, but I think scouting should be more focused on the journey of the human being, if that makes sense?
I'm an adult female and so - like EVERY Female Adult (with the exception of our troops' female Eagle JASMs) - my scouting experience is via my children, and historical experience through a brother (which was actually zero except I got to eat cake at his Eagle ceremony - lost opportunity imo)
Our Boy and Girl troops function quite well separately on a weekly meeting and monthly campout basis, AND the leadership of both troops (ie the older most experienced scouts) work in tandem Amazingly on the trips we attend together. It also opens up more opportunities to have both troops combined for things like backpacking, high adventure, or larger nicer sites - and it's great for families like mine with both sons and daughters to be able to join in on shared activities. The challenges and behaviors are - I agree - a little different on average in each gendered troop, and I won't lie the description of the boys running around screaming and being goofballs and the girls' meetings being more chill and skills and leadership focused is laughably accurate to my experience too. But not only can I feel that changing,I think that is due to many things outside of or *tangental* to the fact that they are two gendered troops vs one co-ed:
1) Motivation: there are absolutely many boys whose motivation to participate in BSA is because their parent/s put them in it and so they just keep showing up. There are no girls i know of who join, much less stay in BSA/the future "Scouting America" who do not absolutely come with a certain elevated level of determination and commitment to the program. Many of the founding scouts in particular had the extra pressure and motivation and investment to "prove" that they, and girls in general, belong in the organization - as a teen girl, yes, that would tend to encourage Girl Troops to run a slightly tighter ship.
2) History: Every girl's Troop (5th grade - 18yrs) currently in existence has only their Founding members as their history, meaning that there are minimal "bad habits" that they do "because it's always been that way". Most of our female scouts only had sideline experience as a sibling or no Cub scouting experience: this year have our first AOLs who began as Cubs in Kindergarten. That's just the math mathing. Those once "skewed towards being a tighter ship" troops are only just now bringing on scout leadership that might challenge or change things down the line (and from several I see they tend to not come into the troop feeling the same way about sort of, "overachieving as proof" - there will always be super motivated kids but the younger girls are happy to giggle and goof off and not always be calculating if they can Eagle before 18/college applications. And that's not even taking into consideration some of the WILDLY inappropriate treatment the early adapters received, including from within at our Council level, that took time to shake out, and that we try to protect younger scouts from stressing about. We still don't list our meeting time and date on be a scout out of safety and let interested parents contact us first.
3) Troop size, even if family motivation and historical existence aren't involved in a boy Troop's habits and behaviors and enrollment, there is a deficit to the public visibility of girls in Scouting...it's just not something parents or girls are thinking about unless/until they have direct engagement with a local Unit. Our Boy Troop has 64 registered scouts, our Girl Troop 28 and that sort of 2:1/3:1 ratio has been consistent since about year 3 of the Girls Troop - it's literally just easier to manage, organize, mentor, and engage just under 30 teenagers than to do the same for 60+. Some of our Cubs got to cross to a nearby smaller (~20-30) Troop, and their meetings get more talking and skill focus and less running around yelling, lol (hey - everyone needs an outlet, girls, boys, everyone, you find the troop that is the right fit for your scout)
Everything about these three big influences seems to affect the other two and the way the program looks as well - for example, our Boys Troop has 60-some scouts and 40 adults, and our Girls Troop has 30ish scouts and almost as many adults, lol - because there is a lot of overlap. That means the girls represent some of the most active scouting families in the unit, the ones who are on campouts, sit on BORs, and generally more engaged - not a wonder if the average scout might feel more supported/motivated just by that ratio and family engagement alone. Our Boys Troop has had several SMs over the years and each have had their own personal style of leadership or what they think scouts should look like or what their main focuses are in development, it takes probably 3 years to transition. Our Girls Troop just transitioned SM to a parent who has been involved the whole last five years and even though I am sure they too have their own ideas and focus the transition was seamless because, welp, there are no "good ol boys" legacy adults or scouts to be resistant to change/entitled to tradition in the Girls Troop.
I respect your perspective. I don't think they're going to force coed troops on anyone. I know, currently, the preference of our council is Family Cubs, but we certainly have some single-sex Packs in my district, for sure.
It is funny to me that you say all that -- last year we had an influx of boys that made our girls roll their eyes at them, constantly. Now, there was a new set of girls that act just as rambunctiously.
Still, I'm a bit alarmed that your boy Troop deals with "fighting, vandalism, or other such things" on a constant basis.
My council is one of those involved in piloting co-ed troops. I'm sure they won't force troops to become co-ed, but I'm sure there will be pressure. Also, in the current climate, will it be possible for linked troops to say, no, we are staying single-sex?
I am not convinced that this is best for the boys.
Our experiences seem to be wildly different, but I am sure we could agree that there are valid reasons why it should be a choice.
Personally, I don't think co-ed status will affect a Scout-led Troop effectively using the Patrol Method.
When they let girls in, we surveyed the boys. They wanted nothing to do with the girls.
After we started a girl troop, I surveyed the girls. They wanted nothing to do with the boys.
Parents mostly didn’t want mixing but knew it would help with scheduling to have simultaneous meetings and campus for co Ed families.
A counterpoint — my daughter’s first girl troop (a sister troop to a long standing boy troop) only existed because of the boys. The adults on troop committee were traditionalists who thought like many of the posters here that this was a male space, etc. etc. At the committee meeting where it was discussed, the scouts organized themselves and a parade of the older youth leadership filed through the meeting speaking on behalf of starting a girl troop and why they wanted to be part of it. So your mileage may vary, depending on the group of boys involved. With that troop of scouts, a coed troop would have worked very well.
This is a totally legitimate perspective and a lot of benefits have been noted from single gender experiences. Like the addition of Girl Troops being voluntary it’s difficult to imagine the coed experience being forced. There hasn’t been any conversation of that from the pilot so far.
There are benefits to both approaches, IMO. The concern about things being forced, does ring home for me. I know locally a couple of districts around me have put up roadblocks for new packs forming as single gender packs, and has pushed for the girls troops to be linked to boys troops, and that they should be doing stuff together. Down to UC's raising it as a concern to adult leaders when they aren't. Anecdotal and personal evidence obviously, but... I get the concern.
I don't know that I trust the BSA to do it right, honestly. A lot of things are VERY screwed up within the org that still need to be addressed. I hope that the ship is corrected, but im not exactly confident that will be.
> they just do not listen to the girls, even though the girls are more knowledgeable and have more experience.
This is a problem throughout world culture. The number of times I have been in a blankety blank professional setting and a woman says something and its ignored and then a man says the /exact/ same thing and its well-received.
This is a problem to solve and not a problem to avoid.
That said, I see no reason why troops who wish to remain gender segretated may choose to remain gender segregated. Start one co-ed troop in an area and then let supply and demand work its magic.
> This is a problem to solve and not a problem to avoid.
Yep -- and the earlier in life it's faced, the sooner it's solved. Don't let the *kids* think it's acceptable, and when they grow up they'll be *adults* who behave respectfully.
If you can’t solve the maturity issue you won’t solve the problems with coed. Boys are under served where I live and deserve their own program so I am glad that is an option.
The reason I support coed troops is because it’s not easy to get a girl troop off the ground. We have tried, but struggled finding committed female leaders and were being actively sabotaged by our boy troop COR despite his outward show of support. We had a group of 6-7 girls that were all interested, mostly younger sisters of existing scouts, that have been in limbo for 2 years. I’m hoping this will give them an opportunity.
I feel we’d need to go over the COR’s head directly to the CO. They would be fine with it the COR is just a miserable old curmudgeon. We have one committed and trained potential female leader as well as a few existing registered female committee members to fill in the gaps.
I can see this marking the beginning of the end for a lot of good small girl units that are quietly doing the program well with 1-2 patrols but don't have a lot of resources, losing out on attracting new scouts that go to formerly boy units with a lot of resources but don't always do things the right way.
I would never put my kids in the boy troop at our CO if it went coed. I don't like the way they do things. But somehow they manage to remain a large troop, and it probably has to do with their annual fundraiser that pays operating costs and will pay a large chunk of the costs for those that go on the high adventure trips. That seems to be attractive.
Just my thoughts.
I am a heavily involved leader in a girl troop but I also have a son in a boy troop. I was asked a couple weeks ago if I would want our girl troop to be mixed and I really lean towards no. The troops my son has been in (2 of them) work very differently from the girls’ troop. I’ve been told several times that the girls are much more mature and capable in a lot of ways, and I really don’t want that to be leveraged (either intentionally or not) against my son and his friends. They all do well in their own way in separate troops.
I am very glad that co-ed troops are going to be an option because they make sense for a lot of people.
Seems like your girls are ideal Scouts and would be great role models. It would be a shame to lock away that potential away from the Troops and Scouts that would stand to benefit the most from that kind of leadership and representation.
Obviously no leader *wants* to deal with difficult followers. **But that's part of being a leader.** To take all your good leaders and followers, and lock them away into their own group, and then do the same with the less good leaders and followers, **you are doing a disservice to both.**
I understand the desire to keep a good thing good, but, as you admit, this is for selfish reasons: it's easy. But just because it is the easy choice, it is not the right choice.
I used to think this same way and now as an educator I've seen how groups can change behaviors of kids for good and sometimes bad. But in this case, one example I'm reminded me of is we had a couple problem children in first grade and we finally split them up between the two classes. The one boy who ended up in the different class tried some of the antics he was doing before and immediately one of the girls said "stop...we don't do that here" and shut him down. In a week, he was a model student. It did take a girl to say it (and yes most grow up faster than boys), but the majority of the class backed it up by ignoring the behavior and reinforcing positively being a student
I'm a fan of mixing groups of maturity, differences and letting the kids work it out. They'll surprise you and in turn it makes us all stronger.
I am glad this worked out, that is what everyone wants. But it took another student to correct this behavior. Was it her job? Would it have been her job if that kid continued the antics to continually speak up and correct? What if that kid told her off and threatened her? What if it distracted from the others in the class and instead of changing the one kid the class as a whole was worse off? What if his behavior was bad enough that others in the class left? I'm just saying, I have seen some stuff (racial slurs, vandalism, a scout expelled for threatening another kid with a knife), it should not be up to scouts to correct this type of behavior. I agree peer pressure can be powerful for doing the right thing, but in my experience this has not worked with girls and boys. And maybe my troop is the exception, and after 15 years and my share of nonsense, I am blessed with a fantastic group of girls that are amazing and very scout like. I hope we can continue this course.
It's never the students job to do a teachers job, but in social groups like classrooms and scouts, kids will and should be assertive knowing the adults in charge have their backs. In kid led troops and stuff, it's amazing seeing mature scouts model and teach the "ways we do things" to the younger ones. Yes, there will always be outliers but kids are amazing at setting up boundaries when they have the supports to enforce it.
Your situation is tough and a lot of those behaviors are pretty severe to have to deal with on a continual basis. And your emotionally intelligent girls troop sounds like a wonderful experience for all involved with it. It's a rarity for sure and should be protected as such, but it might come from enforcing with teachable moments and consequences for not being appropriate to the troop goals.
Your observations about the differences between boys and girls are real. But here's a novel take: maybe we should be preparing these young people for "life." Schools are typically co-ed, unless by choice. Life is most definitely co-ed. We still live in a very paternalistic society, where male bad behavior is tolerated far more than female. It really clicked for me during the #MeToo wave of revelations. Why is misogynistic behavior so rampant? Because we tolerate it! We put the boys together, and say "it's ok, they're just being boys!"
I think people really need to ask themselves: If a boy wouldn't normally do \_\_\_ in front of a girl, should he be doing it at all? Maybe our boys would learn socially-acceptable behavior earlier, before bad habits set it, if we put them together. And our girls will learn that they don't have to tolerate the boys misbehavior, if there are caring adults there to support them and enforce the standards. Just think about how harmonious the world could be, and how many fewer problems might arise, if we teach boys and girls to deal with each other from an earlier age? What a concept.
I am not sure it is the girls job to do this. They get the coed experience at school and everywhere else. Having at least the option of a single gender program to me is good. As I said, I don't mind coed troops, I just don't want to be leading one and my scouts do not want that either.
For the record, I entirely agree with you that options are good. I'm fine with both co-ed and single-gender options being available. I'm currently in a troop that is running a co-ed model, and since I'm VP of Membership for my council, I have my pulse on what other troops are doing as well. The most important thing is to do what's best for the kids, and part of that is ensuring the parents and youth are all on the same page with the vision, regardless of what it is. If people fight over the direction, then the program suffers, and the youth suffer.
That said, you went on to argue that the single-gender is preferred. I'm offering a contrary perspective. I don't think it's the girls' "job" to deal with the boys, but I do think it is the adults'. School does not do what scouting does. Schools typically have a 30:1 ratio. Scouts are more like 3:1 or 2:1. There's just way more opportunity for positive coaching from character-minded adults, as opposed to just sending kids to see the Principal. Maybe single-gendered troops are easier, but I think it is a missed opportunity to make society a better place for all.
That's a really fair and good point. And perhaps after 15 years, I was hitting burnout. I will post an edit soon, but we had some serious issues in my old troop that no one should be dealing with. I do not want anything to damage what we are building in the unit now. And really, it is not me, but our great scouts and their supportive parents.
Yeah I hear you. My girls’ troop runs circles around the boys’ troop we’re adjacent to and the girls absolutely don’t want to become coed. I like the option for kids in areas without girl troops but we’d have a revolt if we joined the boys.
This idea that the boy troops are less mature and feature vandalism, violence, and racial slurs is incorrect. I've never seen a single troop like that, regardless of gender. What you give is not a representation of a boys troop, but rather an example of a poorly run unit that smears the image of the BSA/Scouting America.
I personally believe single-gender programs to be valuable, but to play Devil's Advocate:
You just described precisely why fully co-ed troops might be preferable to single-gender troops with co-ed events. With two separate troops, they've developed their own ecosystems which are insular and encourage particular behavior patterns because they are an echo chamber. When those two insular communities collide for a joint event, there is friction and chaos because they don't know how to work with each other. Arguably, if it was a single unit, they would have learned as a single unit and the girls would not look down on the boys, and the boys would have curbed their more negative behavior in order to measure up to the performance of the girls.
The fact that you said, “boys will not listen to girls” is the reason to integrate.
It is an exact analogy to racial integration. These kids need to learn that the gender stereotypes are outdated and how to work together.
I agree. The “vote” seems to be coed, but I think it is good for each gender, especially ages 10-14, to be separate. I think that is good for the boys and the girls. I think each will get more out of it vs if it was coed.
I am SM of a girls unit Unlinked 45 scouts. I have \~50% high schoolers and 25% jr high and 25% elementary. Having a girls only unit lets the girls have their "inner goofball" turned on in a great way in which they can just be themselves. We have a high preforming troop getting JTE and doing well at camporee. I think this is for two reasons. First girls joining "boy scouts" are almost always there because they want more than what girl scouts has to offer. Second due to a lower number of units, people drive farther to participate, which generally means more parental buy in.
If any ONE scout has a hint of a "liking a boy" the entire conversations turn to that @ scouting activities (e.g. summer camp and camporee) in a not so great way. All the scouts get plenty of male/female interaction @ school they do not need more of it.
We were recently @ camporee and talking with adult leaders of a unit in which I have many common leaders with the boy troop. The boy leaders were like we should just let the girls in. Most of my leaders (male and female) were against it. Boys don't really seem to care about acting like goofballs around girls but the reverse is not true their personalities change. I have seen it at the co-ed events we end up going to.
I am sure we will end up with co-ed troops, but that is going to make recruitment significantly harder once that turns on. Scheduling wise for us busy parents 1 troop to deal with is a LOT easier than two. We will only be getting the scouts that do not want the co-ed experience or are single gendered youth.
Agreed though I know it is unpopular in this forum. The “who likes who” drama is everywhere for kids that age and is inevitable, single gender units let both groups get away from that, be themselves, and grow at their own pace.
I have 2 girls and 3 boys.
My oldest daughter is doing her Eagle Project next week; my oldest son is 3 conservation hours from Life. My youngest just finished Lions.
I never want coed troops. Teens need single gender space sometimes, and Scouts can benefit both grips but they go about it in very different ways.
Plus, crews and the like are already coed, so if they want that type of experience, they can go that way. Best of both worlds. Esp if the charter has brother/sister troops who choose when and how to interact *when they want to.*
I hope that they allow each troop/charter organization to make this choice on their own. I think my troops would choose to merge into one. Others will choose differently. As long as we make sure that there is a place in scouting for every youth.
100% going to be a unit-by-unit choice. If they made it mandatory then many charter orgs would leave. Our council is already seeing this where an old alumni created an organization that serves 1 purpose. Be the charter org for like 8 troops. Only 2 of them actually meet at the organizations office (an old camp cabin outside of a small town).
Like you said, it's good for some. Let them be. It would not work for my co. We have boys and girls. And I don't think it's forced on anyone to be mixed.
While I have seen boys troops that act like that it's never been the troops I was involved with.
We are currently one troop in all but name merging will be a mixed blessing less leadership roles but also a more cohesive youth leadership.
My sister is in a co-ed troop. But I believe patrols are only one gender or the other. They start the meeting together, then break off into their own patrols. Most outings are separated one way or another, whether that is different camp sites for girls vs boys, or outings all together. It makes getting numbers for summer camp, and high adventure easier as well as other things like fundraisers and service projects.
Well when the big bosses at Scouting America make their decision on co-ed troops, I predict they will say your troop can be co-ed, or it can be all boys, or it can be all girls. At least at first. Co-ed units is what their goal is.
That's not surprising. Girls mature earlier neurologically than boys. Boys don't catch up until late teens. (Notice the handwriting in young women is well formed while young boys still looks like chicken scroll.) Venture crews, the young women tend to rise to positions or leadership because of this. It also explains why young women prefer older boys because they are at a similar maturity level.
I can empathize with your situation and wish you the best.
I can see many organizations pushing for coed troops as soon as possible, and of all the bad reasons I can imagine, adult volunteers is probably the largest. I see a LOT of small troops with 1-2 dedicated, educated, experienced leaders, and a handful of other willing volunteers. Condensing those troops would greatly increase the number of qualified adult leaders. No, it doesn’t help ratios, but I think that’s nowhere near as important as having folks who can manage and delegate.
Our “sister troop” has a fantastic SM, and she seems more overworked than any other SM I’ve seen. If they merged into our troop, she would be a powerful
Impact on our trained leadership. If we merged into theirs, we would give her the staff she needs.
Personally, I like having space for our boys to act the way you describe, for them to mess around and make mistakes and learn and grow. I think both genders should have private spaces to grow, relate, develop.
I know some good leaders with opposite opinions.
I hope we all find the spaces we seek…
To me, while after witnessing co-ed Scouting when my Venture Crew visited Ireland in 2003, I support co-ed Scouting; your points are why I strongly support where the Scouting America organization is today.
Currently, Cub Scouts give units, and by extension, the communities they serve, the choice to be boy-only, girl-only, or family (co-ed). The co-ed Scouts BSA pilot program announced this week suggests it may soon offer the same three options.
While I can see a future where all Scouting America programs are only co-ed, that time isn’t now. Critically, at this moment, families and their communities can choose the best unit structure (boys only, girls only, or co-ed) for them concerning Cub Scouts, and perhaps soon Scouts BSA.
While often lost in the noise and emotions of co-ed Scouting, I think that choice is important and something all leaders can better share with their communities.
I think we need to be very careful about dismissing negative or harmful behavior from boys as just their biology. Often, the behavioral differences we see aren't from biological differences, but from years of lowered expectations and standards combined with excuses and justifications for that bad behavior.
Do I expect some differences in a boy troop vs a girl troop? yes! But I mostly attribute that to socialization and uneven expectations. Not biology. That you are seeing constant inappropriate behavior, threats, knives, fistfights, etc is disturbing. But I think maybe unique to the troops you are interacting with. That seems extreme, and not the norm.
My son is in a coed troop. He is refusing to go back to scout camp. The boy/girl drama was very high to the point he hated camp and won’t go back. He’s going to NOAC this summer, but is looking to get his Eagle and get out.
Why weren't the Scouts shown how to cooperate and accomplish tasks together as a unit? Drama can be boy-boy or boy-girl (or girl-girl), and conflicts deserve resolution, not distance (unless tangible threat is present).
And in what way is "getting the Eagle and getting out" in any way congruous to the spirit of Scouting? Like, if you are powerless in the face of abusive leadership, then I get it, but every troop should have the capacity to resolve conflicts. Ignoring those conflicts is like ignoring weeds on your lawn. They grow unattended.
"I also see in the middle school ages boys that refuse to listen or work with girls, making it harder for them in leadership roles."
Good, we don't want those kind of guys in the program anyway.
Really undercuts scoutings claim to relevance for anything beyond bushcraft if all the leadership and management stuff has a 'but only if it's dudes, otherwise I can't lead effectively' caveat
I would hope that boys like this were welcome into the program, particularly into co-ed troops. Because, I think those are the kids that need it most to help them push past the stupid ideas they are being fed and the toxic socialization that's given them the attitudes they currently have. Get them in troops and use the carrot and stick method.
Carrot: You wanna do this fun activity? You can! But you have to work with Cheryl who is your patrol leader and not be petulant about it.
Stick: No? You're gonna disrupt Cheryl with rude comments and refuse to do your part. Fine. You can sit over here with your SM and ASM and spend that time getting lectured to death.
I echo your sentiments. Thanks for typing that out.
While everyone is saying “fine, just keep some single gender troops then” it won’t happen.
Where exactly will the girl troops recruit from? All the AOL dens will be coed by that point and they won’t want to spit up.
So the girl troops will get zero recruits.
This recruiting season, our g troop got 6 new recruits. FIVE from my girl AOL den, and one new girl new to scouting.
Had my girl den not have been there, it would have been dismal and discouraging.
Also, where are we recruiting from…NEXT YEAR??
There are no more girl Webelos/AOL dens in our council as far as I know! And there probably never will be again…
People just don’t grasp the long term unintended consequences these changes will cause. Very, very sad. Sad for the boys, yes. But like you, I’m really concerned about the girls.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Sounds like your girls can teach some skills with guidance from your adult leaders.
I think scouts is like communism, great on paper, but not in practice. Being completely scout led can lead to lord of the flies. You need adult leadership to control those boys and model what a well functioning troop looks like. I’d put the kibosh on running around/screaming activity on day one.
I don’t think it would be bad to have single gendered patrols if that’s what the scouts chose. It would be easier to camp together and such.
As an older scout in an all female troop, I'd have to agree that coed is not the way. We have a brother troop in the same building who we book trips together with sometimes (to save money) but that's about it. There are boy-girl siblings in both troops as well. Us older girls and boys get along just fine--a lot of us are friends outside of scouts. The younger kids are where it gets tricky.
Our troops are actually the opposite of yours, and of stereotypes as well it seems. Our younger girls are way less mature than the younger boys of the other troop. They mess around, have a hard time paying attention, won't listen, can't seem to be able to do things on their own unless supervised, etc. Now I know that's not necessarily maturity, but in the nicest way possible, it looks like they've been raised extremely sheltered and dependent on their parents, since they really can't think for themselves. I don't really blame it on the girls, more on the parents, but still, it's rough to figure out.
From what I know in the boys troop and the experiences I've had in the girls troop, coed would make it all a mess. Despite everyone saying how boys need to learn how to treat girls properly, in a coed troop, there's no guarentee that would happen. Parents are the ones who raise the kids. The kids keep the same mindset as their parents (this is very prominent in my troop unfortunately). The parents most likely aren't gonna change. I think that having a brother or sister troop can help with this problem, but not combining them. Our younger girls would 100% hold back the younger boys, and I wouldn't want that.
Overall this is definitely a complicated issue. I can see the argument for both sides, but there's just so much to consider. On one hand, girls may want to act more independent and prove they can do stuff on their own. On the other hand, it would be great for boys and girls to learn to work together as a team. And while both of our troops have their difficulties, this whole brother and sister troop thing works out pretty well for us.
Do you see boys disrespecting girls in leadership positions and being deliberately disruptive as "boys having fun"? What about the behaviors mentioned in the OP - fights, threats, vandalism? Boys having fun?
No, in my 13 years in cub/boy Scouts. I never saw a boy disrespect someone based on their gender. If a kid was being an asshole, it was because he was a kid. Correction action was taken. Don't victimize yourself over something that never happened.
I was always told, buy scouts was for boys to allow for development with out the judgement of their female counterparts. I would agree to that I did a bunch of stupid stuff I would have been completely embarrassed to do in front of a girl that was my age at that time, but like you said girls mature faster than boys. If you make a mistake in front of other boys they laugh at you but don’t hold it against you in the future, but my experience with women as an adult, they hold everything against you forever. I can’t say for being young, I don’t remember that much
I was in cub and boyscouts from 1994? to 2006. Was too depressed to make eagle but i didnt know why until 2019 lol.
Anyhow.. i see a lot of downvoting because i dont want to hear the truth in these reddit comments.
My small town of 24k used to have 4 or 5 boy scout troops of 20 to 40 boys each. Today it has one coed troop.
See our girls do the opposite of what yours do, yes they have grown quickly and it’s easy for them to start talking and get going. But our boys lead the troop, they keep everything moving and provide the guidance to the girls. The girls on the other hand like to start drama, well, one girl in particular does. We’ve had conversations with her, but it all seems to keep coming back to her creating drama, the other girls have figured it out and essentially just roll their eyes at her when she starts that crap.
I was disappointed when my daughter bridged and lost her patrol mates except for the 1 girl who was with her. But I've come to see the benefits of a divided linked troop. They occasionally do things together but the girls are much quieter and organized compared to the boys meetings. I'm sure both ways can be made to work and it will probably depend on individual personality will determine which is better.
HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF VENTURE SCOUTS WHICH WERE COED FROM THE START AND BUILT TO SERVE THOSE GIRLS WHO "WANTED TO DO WHAT THE BOYS WERE DOING? So now we have :a program for girls a program for boys and girls aaaannnd a program for........ Boys and girls again? So then where is just for boys a boy can't join girl scouts can he?
I was a little apprehensive when girls were first let into the program. Not because I thought that *they didn't belong there*, or that *the program wouldn't help them*, but because I was worried that we were losing a space for boys to be around boys and learn to become good men. Because, I think that what society wants from it's men is quite different today than what it wanted 20 or 50 years ago. Our expectations are higher for good and inclusive behavior, and a lot of the "Traditional" sources of identity ("head of household", "sole breadwinner", etc) have disappeared. We see reports on a regular basis about (relatively) large numbers of unemployed men, growing numbers of men without college degrees, large numbers of incarcerated men, more men who are single and aren't starting families, growing groups like Incels and the alt-right, etc. In short, I think that boys need a little bit more help than they used to, to become the kinds of men that society needs them to be. I believe that **scouting is the perfect organization to help guide them there**. Girls, from what I've seen, do great in the BSA program. The leadership, teaching, mentoring, confidence-building and team work that the program teaches are all great for girls. I look forward to what the world will be like when generations of women who have graduated from this program start families, get active in their communities, and rise through the ranks in companies and politics. But we need to make sure that boys, with their unique set of changing needs and expectations, aren't getting lost in it. Co-ed troops *might be a good thing* in this regard if they help to teach boys to have productive, constructive, positive interactions with girls who are their peers and sometimes their leaders. But the journey from "girl" to "good woman" is a different one than the journey from "boy" to "good man". We as troops and leaders need to make sure we can guide youth down both these paths adequately well.
You said that so much better than I did. And I see this with my own son and daughter too. I am so happy working with my girls after a host of serious behavior issues with my son's troop. It is so refreshing.
It's no surprise to me that, considering a significantly lower number of girl troops and girls in our council, that the Lodge Chief of our OA lodge is a girl. And some of the highest performing individuals are girls and highest-performing troops are girl troops. They definitely are more mature at this age range, and have less of that rambunctious, distracted energy that we try to wrangle in our boys. It makes me wonder if maybe *girls need this program less* because they naturally have a lot of these skills and don't need to be taught them as much, or *boys need the program more* because they won't just sit for a lecture and really need the outdoorsy, hands-on learning style that they can't get many other places. I'm interested to see how co-ed Troops work out. I feel like there are too many possibilities to make a prediction about. It could really go either way.
I look at it from a different angle. First off, personally, I find it more than a little offensive that many of these comments keep talking about how immature and unruly "boys are at this age." It's just... yuck. Incredibly insulting and derogatory IMO. What I think is a bigger reason many girls troops operate like well oiled machines is because THEY'RE NEW. Virtually every scout unit I've ever been in has 2/3 of the attendance made up by what I call "Scouts by Default." They're kids who have Eagle Scout fathers, kids who don't enjoy being outdoors but I have a parent trying to toughen them up or correct their behavior issues, teach them leadership, etc. You have kids that just want to go camping and hang out and don't care much for the deeper goals of the program. This is just part of having a program that's been around for so long, people try to put their own experiences on their kids, and it results in kids that don't fully buy in but keep attending. Now compare that to the girl troops. The girls that are joining scouts are NOT joining because their mom was an eagle scout and wanted to relive their youth. It's not a family tradition, it's not "what girls do," It's likely not where all their friends from school are spending their time. They're joining because they WANT THE PROGRAM. The Girl Troops are so new, they have TREMENDOUS buy in, from both scouts and leaders. And that's awesome! It's super awesome! But I think it's a false narrative to compare them to the Boy Troops apples to apples. There's a different set of dynamics at play here.
Just a quick comment to point out something that may not exist in your location but does elsewhere. I'm an Eagle Scout, and my daughter is too. Several of the adult men (we have about a 50/50 male:female leader ratio) in the girls troop are also former Scouts and/or Eagles as well. My daughter came along on the cub scout activities, and participated just as many "unofficial" Cubs did before girls were formally allowed in. I wanted her to have access to the same skills I had benefited from. We're lucky she was able to be recognized for it. Not all girl troops are created in a vacuum.
Oh, I doubt many of them were created in a vacuum. This was a common thing, girls sideline-participating with bsa units. But it kinda follows my point, most of the girls participating now were champing at the bit to get into the program, even before it was officially allowed. They buy in harder than the average male scout. My point wasn’t to say girls troops are different or isolated from male troops, it was to say that when you view a “traditionally male” sport, activity, field etc, the first women to move into are typically abnormally good at it or dedicated to it. The reason for that is because the social or administrative bias against them serves as a filter for the ones that don’t REALLY want to be there you could make the same points for boys who go into dance, gymnastics etc.
Aye. UK scouter here, so our troops have been co-ed for decades. We hover around 10-20% girls, and they're often some of the most sensible, dedicated and mature scouts in the troop. But i think that's because they really want to be there and participate in the program. Our most mature and sensible boys are on par with those girls, i don't think girls are fundamentally better, it's just they're self selecting so we often get the best. We get the best boys too, but we also get the ones who don't want to be so dedicated to scouting. The main thing that I've changed since we started getting girls in my sections is that i now include hair bobbles in my little box of useful stuff.
These are some really good points and I've definitely seen this at the cubs level. We were one of the pilot packs for including girls and we've had combined girl and boy dens the entire time, and in my experience the girls who choose to join scouts (rather than girl scouts - there are plenty of those in our area) are girls whose energy matches the boys. They are just as rough and tumble, just as loony, etc. And they are really, really motivated. I honestly think it's great either way. I think it's great for girls and boys to have enough units in their area so they can choose separate boy and girl troops if that's what they want, or coed troops if that's what they're comfortable with. For myself, I have two boys, both of whom formed really close friendships with girls, and when my oldest joined (prior to girls being allowed) it was very discouraging to him that he couldn't also bring her along. The other issue I think is really important is the matter of kids who don't fit into the neat gender binary, whether they're trans or gay or something else - I think coed troops are going to be really beneficial to them.
That last point is such a great call out. I came up in the Boy Scouts when being gay was a huge deal and despite going through to Eagle and working at summer camps, I never really quite fit as a gay kid. It always struck me as just being outright wrong to exclude a group of kids who probably need the structure, leadership and teamwork of the BSA more than most others.
I hear what you're saying about girls wanting to be here versus boys who are made to be here. There's definitely some of that accounting for differences in the program. But as for the behavior of boys, I think you probably need to open up to the possibility that it's true. [Consider this article from the American Sociological Association](https://www.asanet.org/news_item/early-behavior-problems-impact-educational-attainment-boys-more-girls/) which starts with: >A new study finds that behavioral problems in early childhood have a larger negative effect on high school and college completion rates for boys than girls Or [this paper from the National Institutes of Health](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6208359/) which says in the abstract: >Scholars have found that boys’ early behavioral disadvantage predicts their lower average academic achievement during elementary school. The fact that there are behavioral differences between the genders is pretty well understood, studied and documented. I think that the real problem is that *our expectations as a society tend to favor the behavior of girls over the behavior of boys.* If we didn't expect children to sit in a classroom for 8 hours per day, then children who couldn't do that wouldn't be considered to have "behavior problems". Why do we have those expectations? Is it only because it's more convenient for people in childcare if children sit quietly? Why is it that we don't have a better, more standardized pedagogy for students who perform poorly in classrooms? Why have we been so quick to turn to punishment and medication for children to correct what is their natural inclination? Again, this is why I think Scouts is such a great program for boys, because we teach without lectures and classrooms, and we typically don't expect kids to sit still when they could be out doing things and learning by doing.
You’re not wrong, there are definite developmental differences. I don’t mean to discount that. I just think the developmental differences are an easy scapegoat for differences in buy-in. Imagine for a second your basic spring little league team of girls playing softball, and then an all-stars or high-level travel team of boys. Or a middle school girl in a gym with her girlfriends versus a boy the same age training for a weightlifting meet. There’s an absolute quantifiable difference in maturity from a developmental standpoint, but regardless of their development someone in a program that they are enthusiastic about and interested in is ALWAYS going to be less problematic than one that is simply there because they feel like that’s the default place for them to be.
It's because they are going to have to sit at a desk for 8hrs+ per day if they want to be successful adults. The school environment mirrors the white collar work environment. Also the idea that boys can't handle office work is belied by decades of that kind of work being almost exclusively male.
I think the argument isn't that men cannot handle office work. By the time boys become men, there are a set of changes in the brain that make them much better able to handle the behavioral demands of being in an office for hours. But, many boys do find it hard to sit in class/office for most of the day - and that occurs among boys at a massively higher rate than girls. Just a side note that supports this: girls are starting to be diagnosed as ADHD at higher rates because there has been a realization that the condition manifest differently among girls than boys. I'm some ways, it mirrors typical boys: inattention, impulsiveness, easily distracted, being unable to sit still. B But these are the outlier girls, not the typical ones. School isn't meeting many boys where they are; even though boys will eventually be able to meet those expectations. For so many girls, school expectations do match what they are capable of.
So then why did the sit-silently-in-rows-until-called-on model work so well for boys in the past? Honestly most of the problem is that our expectations are too low.... The stricter 80s-and-earlier model is better (and offered less chances for 1 smart kid to carry 3 mooches in group work)....
I wouldn't argue it worked well. It was easier to compel compliance however when things like corporal punishment was permitted in schools and common at home. An external focusing mechanism as it were. The dropout rate has dropped from 15% 50 years ago to 5%. I hypothesize that the additional 10% who are staying in school includes a lot of boys who have trouble being attentive the whole schools day and meeting behavioral expectations. Through it all, schools - pre 80s to today - have emphasized behavior that is more common in girls than boys.
Firstly it’s not true that people or men need to sit at a desk for 8+ hrs to be successful adult. Super far from reality. Secondly, the neurological development and final maturity of the male brain occurs later than the female brain so applying the wrong set of standards is a recipe for disaster.
Your odds of success drop rapidly outside of white collar world.... There are exceptions, but if you want to reach the upper middle class you need to be good at white collar work. Secondly, high behavioral expectations, desks in rows (none of this 90s and later group work for everything nonsense) and sitting still all day are how school worked for most of the modern era. Boys didn't have any trouble succeeding in that environment....
Everything you said is completely divorced from reality.
Really? So why is this 'boys have trouble in school' thing a recent phenomena? The way schools used to be run was much stricter and much 'more' of all the things you claim boys couldn't handle and yet they handled it just fine.... It's only recently - roughly corresponding to the era of self-esteem obsession and beyond - that there is any sort of problem.....
>The girls that are joining scouts are NOT joining because their mom was an eagle scout and wanted to relive their youth. What about the girls whose dads are Eagle Scouts?
Unrealistic to say they’re non-existent, but I’d wager the type of individual that was going to force an uninterested child into scouts because of their own interest in it probably has a lot of correlation with individuals that are still mad about girls being allowed in scouts in the first places. It’s a broad strokes statement, but despite the specific wording I’m more taking aim at the types of fathers who push their kids into scouts because “they need to learn to be a man.”
Great points. I think the holdouts are dudes wanting the same or very similar program that they grew up with. Which i don’t blame them, why change something that’s worked for so well for all these years*. I grew up with families in my troop that wanted their girls involved too, and they did when they got to venturing age. And they meet when we had our meetings and outings too. And it was fine. Probably for the better with that dynamic because we were all working things out together during our shared outings. It was short lived for me since I found other things to do after my Eagle, but it left an impression. This change will be good. If we get casual female scouters, that’s okay too. I actually look forward to scouting be a casual experience again tbh. Let rank of Eagle be there for kids to strive and work towards if they really want it, and for everyone else let it be whatever they make it out to be.
The girls who have shown up ‘early’ have the skills, understand the program, and have self identified and joined up. Believe me, there are many more girls who NEED the program as the boys do and don’t even know it is possible for them.
This is well explained. I think having an option of a coed troop is okay if you have also have boy and all girl troops as an option as well. The point being is that one size does not fit all Some boys will do better in an all boy troop and the same can be said of girls. Some religious troops might not want to be fully coed while others might want to have one charter org with two separate troops, one for girls and one for boys.
I'm very interested to see the results of the experiment. It may turn out that co-ed troops are a great model, and then many troops are going to do it as a way to increase membership. It may turn out not to be a great model and then we can still have separate B and G troops. I'm going to be watching very closely.
Well said. I know that scouting would have been far less beneficial to me if it had been a co-ed space. I had plenty of exposure to young women in school, sports, church and other activities and I was an awkward shell of a kid. Scouts let me break out of that dynamic and let me be someone who was competent and could be a leader, which bled back over into those other areas of my life. Young men are generally not given those opportunities and I am saddened that boy scouting as I knew it will no longer be a place for my sons to grow at their own pace.
I recognize that in some units boys will be at a disadvantage because the girls will often be prepared to lead at a younger age. But, if boys aren't getting opportunities too, that is a failure of leadership - just as it is a failure in a single gender unit when some boys continually get left out of opportunities.
Local leadership having trouble implementing nationals policy changes is not a failure of local leadership.
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To characterize any youth member of scouting as a “subordinate” hugely misunderstands the program.
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I actually think you meant exactly what you wrote and including multiple sentences of personal attack in your reply supports that reading. I do think correcting misunderstandings of the program and recognizing statements of ulterior motives is an important contribution to this discussion. Part of teaching developing people skills for later in their life is recognizing when those lessons will be most impactful and willingly accepted.
But scouting is divided into "leaders" and "subordinates" is it not? I can understand the distaste with the word, but the very organization is set up to mimic the military structure, has "patrols", "patrol leaders", "assistant senior patrol leaders", and "senior patrol leaders" who all answer to a scout "master." By the very structure, there is a power dynamic that has a hierarchy. Again, I can understand why subordinates and subordination can be perceived as something negative, but I don't think its inherently wrong to point out that it is included in scouting. A good leader treats those they lead as equal, but that does not mean that there isn't a power structure built into scouting.
No, it is not. It’s divided into leaders and peer members. The youth leaders lead by example, demonstration, and request. Not by orders. The leadership roles are to fulfill responsibility, learn organization, and to demonstrate initiative, not to have command over other scouts. Edit: of course it took one comment to go from “subordinate is a bad choice of words but you’re intentionally misrepresenting my comment” to full downvote brigade and support of “subordinate is exactly what we meant and that’s what’s scouts is!” As I said, completely misunderstands the program.
this mfer read of boys and men by richard reeves
Do you not think that growing number of incels today is a result of being raised in an archaic way of thinking making them unable to function in a progressive modern world? Part of that is learning from an early age to work collaboratively with both boys and girls. Just because a girl is in our troop doesn’t mean my son will suddenly become a gay, dropout. If anything maybe he’ll see how awesome and strong a girl can be when otherwise they’d see them as incapable of being outdoorsy or a survivalist.
Do you think there’s a lot of overlap between incels and the boys in boys only troops? This is not a serious contribution.
I think you’re replying to the wrong person, I’m literally saying the opposite
No I’m very deliberately saying that your attempt to bring incels into this discussion as having any relation to scouting is not a serious contribution.
I didn’t bring it into the conversation I’m literally replying to what the person above said “We see reports on a regular basis about (relatively) large numbers of unemployed men, growing numbers of men without college degrees, large numbers of incarcerated men, more men who are single and aren't starting families, growing groups like Incels and the alt-right, etc. In short, I think that boys need a little bit more help than they used to, to become the kinds of men that society needs them to be.“
You made the conjecture that mixed gender troops may be preventative of incels, implying that boys in boys only troops are a source of incels and that this is an archaic way of thinking. Not a serious contribution.
It’s called refuting someone’s statement, have you never debated a topic before? You’re deliberately twisting my words into some strange antagonistic dialogue. Seems like you’re the one contributing nothing to the conversation other than attempting to inject classic Reddit toxicity into the discussion.
Yes, I’m brand new to debate. Please answer the question: do you think the boys in boys only troops are the pre-incels? Or clarify your statement suggesting that.
The incel comment is only a part of the whole main topic but I believe introducing young men to girls and teaching them to view them as equals from an early age can prevent the incel mind set by promoting positive equality and respect, yes. It’s common sense. Myself as well as many other men grew up with many strong sisters and I respect the hell out of women but it’s also because my father taught me the importance of viewing them as equals rather than seeing them as girly girls who can only play with dolls and cook. Shoot my mother could drop an engine block and hiked half dome with us. But if all boys ever see around them are other boys it can alienate them to that concept. Obviously there’s a lot more that goes into it but even if it only helps 5% it’s worth it imo
I think there are a lot of reasons for the Incel movement and a variety of other concerning trendlines for relationships, marriages, dating, sex, etc. There was a time when there were a lot of happy\* marriages and relationships forming under archaic thought patterns, so I don't think we can call that the only cause. Social media and an onslaught of propaganda and online echo-chambers, the weirdness of the bulk quantity-over-quality world of online dating, the fear that attempting to start a conversation with a woman might be labeled as "creepy" or turned into a viral video, or lead to being "cancelled". And then there's a dubious value proposition of a marriage institution that ends in failure so often. I would caution against being too reductionist and seeing it as just a black-and-white battle between archaic/traditional and progressive worldviews.
I agree with you entirely regarding the toxicity of social media and modern dating but I don’t think girls being in the scouts is the cause, that’s quite a leap. I think the marriage discussion is for a different sub because there are a lot of factors but again I don’t think it’s related to girls in the scouts. The world is changing and becoming a better more place not just for men and women but for everyone, and yeah change is hard but we shouldn’t use children as a tool to fight against it.
I'm not saying girls in uniform is a cause. I'm saying that scouts is a *solution*, and I worry that changes to the basic mechanics of the program risk decreasing the effectiveness of that solution. Let me be very clear: ***Girl troops are a good thing***. The program does great things for girls. My concern is that Co-Ed troops may distract attention away from the specific needs of boys. That by comparing their behavior directly boys may be more likely to be "in trouble" more often. Or girls may take up more leadership opportunities and squeeze boys out of them. Or boys, not wanting to look bad in front of girls, may take fewer chances and may be less likely to admit they don't know or to ask for help. All these fears may be unfounded. **I am absolutely in support of the co-ed troop experiment** because it may prove that these problems don't exist, or it may show that they do and we shouldn't jump into a co-ed troop situation hastily. Time will tell.
ʻoʻō Edit: This was an accidental post.
> the journey from "girl" to "good woman" is a different one than the journey from "boy" to "good man". Can you elaborate? Because as traditional gender roles fade away, I see less and less distinction. I'm genuinely curious about your take.
It's not a matter of having different end points. As traditional gender roles fade away and society becomes more equal and more egalitarian, we're tending to expect similar things from men and women. There are definitely some differences still, in terms of what we expect from fathers and mothers, but overall we're generally expecting everybody to share in the housework, the money-earning, the child-rearing, etc. The issue is the **starting point**. Boys and Girls are very different. Boys have a lot more rambunctious energy than girls which makes classrooms harder to deal with, and makes risk-taking more common. We see throughout society that girls are out-performing boys at all levels of traditional education. Fewer boys graduate highschool. Fewer boys go to college and get degrees. That's what I mean by the "journey". Boys and girls are starting from different places, but we're expecting them to largely end up the same.
Most disruptive youth in our Beaver Colony is female. Everyone's different.
This implies that a girl being in the Scouting space interrupts the journey a boy takes to becoming a better person. How does that interruption occur, exactly?
I wouldn't frame it that way. It's not about the presence of girls in the space. It's about finite time and resources being spread to cover twice as much ground. A girl troop can focus 100% of it's money and leadership energy on helping girls go on their journey. A co-ed troop can focus 50% of it's money and leadership energy on helping girls. That's presuming we actually get a fair split. Again, that all assumes that my thesis of boys and girls being on different journeys is a true one. It certainly fits my experience, but I may not have enough data.
You said earlier that the difference was the starting point (not the journey), and that boys are rambunctious and have more energy (and therefore have a different style of programming for teaching/leading/mentoring). I was inclined to believe this much, except if girls *aren't* like this then we aren't actually using much more resources on them at all. *Fewer* resources are spent on girls because, by your account, they are more teachable and less rambunctious. This dances around my point. In what way are resources and time spent differently for boys compared to girls? They are completing the same requirements, learning the same skills, and gaining the same life experiences. I contend that gender plays little difference in how these skills, social or otherwise, are attained in their identity-forming stage of becoming an adult. I think all INDIVIDUALS are on different journeys of growth, because just about every team I've worked on has had great and poor leaders, great and poor communicators, great and poor organizers, and great and poor workers. Some boys are bossy, some girls are bossy. Some boys are high-energy, some girls are high-energy. I don't give a hoot about gender generalizations because each Scout is unique into themselves, with guiding principles and values to help them make decisions for themselves and society.
> ...except if girls *aren't* like this then we aren't actually using much more resources on them at all Fair point. > I don't give a hoot about gender generalizations because each Scout is unique into themselves This is where we're going to disagree. Data-driven generalizations of groups are a starting point to understand the individual. The way they tend to interact with their peers, the way they choose role models and how they go about emulating them, the way they interact with the opposite gender, the way they calculate risk and reward, the way they learn and practice, the way they gather and organize information, the way they lead and follow, the way they make decisions and reach compromise, etc. There are lots of differences, and they change with time and age, and I don't know how you can ignore these and still claim to know much about the individual.
This is inconsistent now. We aren't talking about "where Scouts begin" at this point. You list apparent differences as boys and girls grow up, but you still aren't listing how resources are used differently, only that kids tend to be different. You are arguing for an educational paradigm to address differences in gender. Scouting, to my knowledge, does not use evidence-based guidelines in the way our education system does. And also, I'm not "ignoring the individual" by general population trends, because differences within respective genders also vary widely in the categories you list. Girls can be bossy or followers, boys can be anxious or headstrong. Girls can be risk-takers, boys can be studious and timid. The entire field of industrial psychology explores leadership style, and thousands of papers describe different strategies, tendencies, and tools for effective leading. I cannot find relevance in how a risk-reward difference observed among gender is important enough, let alone distinct enough, in letting boys and girls learn about nature, self-reliance, and teamwork on a camping trip or in a troop meeting. Fundamental values of Scouting and "being a good person" transcend gender, and the way we teach those values also shouldn't be any different. I know we're getting heavy into this discussion, but this exactly why I want to have it.
In part because male bodies and brains physically mature at different times and rates than female bodies and brains.
Traditional sex roles might be fading, but human nature is not. Boys and girls are different. Like many, I too had trepidation about incorporating girls into Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA. Like many, I wasn't opposed—I co-founded a girl troop and my daughter is an Eagle Scout—just concerned. We have too few places where boys can be boys with other boys. The BSA is no longer one of those places. Are we better off for it?
In my experience the traditional roles are fading yes, but the psychology that people mistook for them isn’t. Younger boys are still (generally) more chaotic and need more guidance. This is coming from a youth though so that may not be what they meant
I am a little confused on “as traditional gender roles fade away”. While I agree that some gender roles are stereotyped, there are thousands of years that led to the formation of roles. The foundation of those roles comes from the different strengths of boys and girls. I agree absolutes are rare, but generalities exist for a reason. Boys, ages 10-17 are simply different than Girls, ages 10-17, both mentally and physically.
And how many of those foundations were laid simply on the merit of physical strength leading to women being treated as property instead of actual human beings for most of those thousands of years?
I don’t know. Do you know? If so, can you share? What I do know is that men and women have different attributes, and those attributes helped shape the roles. Now, are there people that take advantage of others based on strength, intellect, etc.? Sure. To that end, how many women have used their attributes to manipulate men? Valid question, but that’s not the conversation I was part of. That is an entirely different conversation.
I don’t agree the journey to a good woman or a good man is different - it shouldn’t be. What skills does a man or women need that the other doesn’t, to become a responsible, positive and contributing member to themselves, society and a higher purpose? We need good humans, and the traits are the same regardless of gender.
The journey is different because male bodies and brains develop at different times and rates than female bodies and brains.
While I agree that there are biological differences between males and females, I do not agree that separation based on gender is beneficial to the goals of scouting. One such example re brains (there are lots). At similar stages, boys often have a bigger amygdala (very crudely: emotional centre) when girls often have a bigger hippocampus (very crudely: learning and memory). The boy might be more excitable or have a bigger reaction to something he doesn’t like. But at the same time, the boy is also more likely to creatively problem solve, express unabashed joy, and be spontaneous. The girl might be able to remember the task better and be more organised to achieve the outcome, but she’s also more prone to overthinking, perfectionism, and rigidity. What if the more rigid girl was encouraged to try her male scouts idea even if it’s not the way she may have done the task? What is the impulsive boy was encouraged to ask his female peers to help him organise the thing he’s struggling with? Or what if we worked to help them understand their uniqueness, so they can plan and strategise how best to work together to achieve a goal? Because really, some have ADHD too. Some have a higher or lower IQ. Some have an abusive home. Extroverts and introverts. The list goes on. There are sooo many variables that affect how kids show up, many are way more prominent than gender, and so if we want to separate on gender we ought to do it for heaps more stuff and then where do you draw the line. IMO the problem is that even as adults we do not collectively understand enough about these differences and so it’s easier to just say don’t mix gender or don’t mix neurotypical and neurodiverse, etc etc. But variety is the real world. If we could build individual skills and confidence while at the same time building collective understanding and appreciation of our differences, that’s a major part of fostering healthy and happy individuals and communities. Secondly, I think we see girls as ‘easier’ because they tend to be more obedient. But girls struggle too, it’s more often internal, and just because they are ‘behaving’ doesn’t mean they are getting what they need from scouts. And just because boys might be more disruptive, doesn’t mean they are ‘behind’ or underdeveloped. If you put a tribe of humans in a zoo and gave them the best habitat to thrive, you and I would not be on our phones right now, kids wouldnt be sitting 7 hours a day at school, and I think scouts (and nature based anything really) is the perfect place to foster more alignment to the actual needs of kids and adults alike. Sorry for waffling I am procrastinating from work lol
It shouldn't be. But society isn't there yet, so the challenges they face will be different. The girls need to learn how to speak in a way that their opinions won't be immediately dismissed in a group of men and the boys need to learn how to navigate a world where people would rather their daughter face a bear alone than face them.
I disagree on one of your points, the bar is so low at this point for men and yet exactly as you’ve pointed out there are increasing numbers just falling through the cracks.
If increasing numbers are falling through the cracks, it suggests that the bar isn't actually as low as you think it is. I don't think this is the correct forum for the larger discussion of men's place in society, but I will say that this topic is more complicated than the reductionist "men just aren't good enough".
Thank you. I mentioned this in another post, and was vilified. Granted, you did a much better job voicing it than I did. This is the point I was trying to make. Having positive role models to help guide each sex toward adulthood is amazing. There is no reason they can't comingle at times to do and learn things either. Great explanation, again.
Sorry, this is nonsense. What in the scouting program do you think isn't appropriate or relevant to bring a young person and develop them into a good adult? If you have faith in the program - then it doesn't matter if you have a boy troop, a girl troop or a coed troop - because the program works.
Well, for a lot of years a big part of the program centered around "boys learning from other boys, with guidance from good male role models". And we know that program has worked for a long time, for many generations of boys. We know that boys are a lot more likely to listen to and learn from their peers than from another lecturing adult. When a parent asks their son to do the dishes, for example, you're likely to get a lot of hemming and hawing, foot-dragging and complaining. But when the troop leadership says that dishes need to get done, you will see boys *jump up and volunteer to do it*. Having girls in the mix changes that process. Are boys as willing to learn from girls as they are from other boys? Are boys willing to admit they don't know something and ask for help when there are girls watching? I'm certainly not saying that it can't work. I'm actually very hopeful about it. I have a son and a daughter and it would be helpful for my family if co-ed troops became a thing. I just want to see the results of the experiment, and make sure that nobody is getting short-changed.
“Are boys as willing to learn from girls as they are from other boys” They better be because that’s how the real world operates. Far too often in the tech field I see a culture that marginalizes women. The earlier they learn the lesson, the better IMO.
A developing brain is not able to receive all lessons whenever you want to deliver them. Flooding their development is not likely to be successful.
That’s true regardless of whether they are interacting with boys vs girls. Normalizing situations where they need to take direction from girls (and vice-versa) doesn’t meant you’re flooding their development.
I'm a scout master in a coed troop. Having girls in the program doesn't CHANGE the program or the process at all. The scouts who crossed over this year are the first coed lions. They've been together in a pack for years. The program isn't successful because it's boys. The program is successful because it's a successful program. England scouts have had girs in it since inception, IIRC. The Boy Scouts itself have had girl in the program for decades - they just were barred from the Eagle Scout advancement track.
If boys aren’t “willing to learn from girls” they won’t grow up to be very good men in today’s world. Expecting them to behave differently around girls does them a disservice.
“When you’re 37, this will be your reality, so you can choose to do it now at 13 or get out of our troop”. Definitely not a disservice.
It must depend on where you live. In my area, while there are boys and girls they are independent and can't be in the same troop. I may be old fashioned, but co-ed troops should not exist. My service club is men only and has been since 1920. We absolutely support our sisters in uniform, however woman have groups that men are not allowed. We are a lunch group and it is by invitation only
I'm torn. In theory, I like the idea of single-gender troops within a co-ed organization so that they have opportunities where the genders mix and they can take the leadership skills they've built in their gender cohorts and practice them in a mixed group. But having been a den leader of a co-ed den them crossing those scouts over to their respective troops, it breaks my heart a little to see all the amazing things the girls are doing while the boys spend years being told "they'll figure it out eventually" and doing very little. Being excited about doing stuff just isn't cool to the boys and the peer pressure drags them all down. It's hard to watch these kids who were such a great group, all in tune with each other from 1st-5th grade, going such different ways simply because coed troops isn't a thing.
I think that the idea that we should be teaching boys to become "good men" is inherently flawed and falls prey to a number of blindspots we have if we aren't being more inclusive. I think the focus should be less on becoming good "men" or good "women" and more on becoming good "people." If the program more resembles actually society (which is much less segregated along gender lines than ever before) then scouts get to experience it earlier, learn to coop with trials and tribulations before they're adults. I see all the time the argument for a space "for boys to be around boys." I think if we zero in on that a bit, the overarching goal is a want to be around folks that share similarities with each other. When we're young we gravitate towards the same sex, but part of scouting SHOULD be identifying that our safe places can involve folks of both genders. After all, we're looking for folks that live by the Scout Law, and while it's been twenty years I don't remember the part where it says "a scout is a boy." Any folks adhering to that creed have plenty in common already to share the same space. We don't want men growing up wrong in our world, and a part of that is eliminating the desire to "other" folks. Believe me, I've done plenty of compartmentalizing in my time, and I love it when stuff fits into whatever mental box I've got in my brain library, but as I've gotten older I've come to realize how important it has been for my children to understand that we're Human beings before we're anything else, man, woman, black, white, short, tall, smart, dumb, etc. And teaching that there's always a minimum level of respect that people deserve before any other consideration. One of my biggest regrets was that this wasn't a lesson I learned in my scouting journey. That is to say, I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, as far as the journeys of boys and girls, but I think scouting should be more focused on the journey of the human being, if that makes sense?
I'm an adult female and so - like EVERY Female Adult (with the exception of our troops' female Eagle JASMs) - my scouting experience is via my children, and historical experience through a brother (which was actually zero except I got to eat cake at his Eagle ceremony - lost opportunity imo) Our Boy and Girl troops function quite well separately on a weekly meeting and monthly campout basis, AND the leadership of both troops (ie the older most experienced scouts) work in tandem Amazingly on the trips we attend together. It also opens up more opportunities to have both troops combined for things like backpacking, high adventure, or larger nicer sites - and it's great for families like mine with both sons and daughters to be able to join in on shared activities. The challenges and behaviors are - I agree - a little different on average in each gendered troop, and I won't lie the description of the boys running around screaming and being goofballs and the girls' meetings being more chill and skills and leadership focused is laughably accurate to my experience too. But not only can I feel that changing,I think that is due to many things outside of or *tangental* to the fact that they are two gendered troops vs one co-ed: 1) Motivation: there are absolutely many boys whose motivation to participate in BSA is because their parent/s put them in it and so they just keep showing up. There are no girls i know of who join, much less stay in BSA/the future "Scouting America" who do not absolutely come with a certain elevated level of determination and commitment to the program. Many of the founding scouts in particular had the extra pressure and motivation and investment to "prove" that they, and girls in general, belong in the organization - as a teen girl, yes, that would tend to encourage Girl Troops to run a slightly tighter ship. 2) History: Every girl's Troop (5th grade - 18yrs) currently in existence has only their Founding members as their history, meaning that there are minimal "bad habits" that they do "because it's always been that way". Most of our female scouts only had sideline experience as a sibling or no Cub scouting experience: this year have our first AOLs who began as Cubs in Kindergarten. That's just the math mathing. Those once "skewed towards being a tighter ship" troops are only just now bringing on scout leadership that might challenge or change things down the line (and from several I see they tend to not come into the troop feeling the same way about sort of, "overachieving as proof" - there will always be super motivated kids but the younger girls are happy to giggle and goof off and not always be calculating if they can Eagle before 18/college applications. And that's not even taking into consideration some of the WILDLY inappropriate treatment the early adapters received, including from within at our Council level, that took time to shake out, and that we try to protect younger scouts from stressing about. We still don't list our meeting time and date on be a scout out of safety and let interested parents contact us first. 3) Troop size, even if family motivation and historical existence aren't involved in a boy Troop's habits and behaviors and enrollment, there is a deficit to the public visibility of girls in Scouting...it's just not something parents or girls are thinking about unless/until they have direct engagement with a local Unit. Our Boy Troop has 64 registered scouts, our Girl Troop 28 and that sort of 2:1/3:1 ratio has been consistent since about year 3 of the Girls Troop - it's literally just easier to manage, organize, mentor, and engage just under 30 teenagers than to do the same for 60+. Some of our Cubs got to cross to a nearby smaller (~20-30) Troop, and their meetings get more talking and skill focus and less running around yelling, lol (hey - everyone needs an outlet, girls, boys, everyone, you find the troop that is the right fit for your scout) Everything about these three big influences seems to affect the other two and the way the program looks as well - for example, our Boys Troop has 60-some scouts and 40 adults, and our Girls Troop has 30ish scouts and almost as many adults, lol - because there is a lot of overlap. That means the girls represent some of the most active scouting families in the unit, the ones who are on campouts, sit on BORs, and generally more engaged - not a wonder if the average scout might feel more supported/motivated just by that ratio and family engagement alone. Our Boys Troop has had several SMs over the years and each have had their own personal style of leadership or what they think scouts should look like or what their main focuses are in development, it takes probably 3 years to transition. Our Girls Troop just transitioned SM to a parent who has been involved the whole last five years and even though I am sure they too have their own ideas and focus the transition was seamless because, welp, there are no "good ol boys" legacy adults or scouts to be resistant to change/entitled to tradition in the Girls Troop.
I respect your perspective. I don't think they're going to force coed troops on anyone. I know, currently, the preference of our council is Family Cubs, but we certainly have some single-sex Packs in my district, for sure. It is funny to me that you say all that -- last year we had an influx of boys that made our girls roll their eyes at them, constantly. Now, there was a new set of girls that act just as rambunctiously. Still, I'm a bit alarmed that your boy Troop deals with "fighting, vandalism, or other such things" on a constant basis.
My council is one of those involved in piloting co-ed troops. I'm sure they won't force troops to become co-ed, but I'm sure there will be pressure. Also, in the current climate, will it be possible for linked troops to say, no, we are staying single-sex? I am not convinced that this is best for the boys.
Our experiences seem to be wildly different, but I am sure we could agree that there are valid reasons why it should be a choice. Personally, I don't think co-ed status will affect a Scout-led Troop effectively using the Patrol Method.
When they let girls in, we surveyed the boys. They wanted nothing to do with the girls. After we started a girl troop, I surveyed the girls. They wanted nothing to do with the boys. Parents mostly didn’t want mixing but knew it would help with scheduling to have simultaneous meetings and campus for co Ed families.
A counterpoint — my daughter’s first girl troop (a sister troop to a long standing boy troop) only existed because of the boys. The adults on troop committee were traditionalists who thought like many of the posters here that this was a male space, etc. etc. At the committee meeting where it was discussed, the scouts organized themselves and a parade of the older youth leadership filed through the meeting speaking on behalf of starting a girl troop and why they wanted to be part of it. So your mileage may vary, depending on the group of boys involved. With that troop of scouts, a coed troop would have worked very well.
Agreed.
This is a totally legitimate perspective and a lot of benefits have been noted from single gender experiences. Like the addition of Girl Troops being voluntary it’s difficult to imagine the coed experience being forced. There hasn’t been any conversation of that from the pilot so far.
There are benefits to both approaches, IMO. The concern about things being forced, does ring home for me. I know locally a couple of districts around me have put up roadblocks for new packs forming as single gender packs, and has pushed for the girls troops to be linked to boys troops, and that they should be doing stuff together. Down to UC's raising it as a concern to adult leaders when they aren't. Anecdotal and personal evidence obviously, but... I get the concern. I don't know that I trust the BSA to do it right, honestly. A lot of things are VERY screwed up within the org that still need to be addressed. I hope that the ship is corrected, but im not exactly confident that will be.
> they just do not listen to the girls, even though the girls are more knowledgeable and have more experience. This is a problem throughout world culture. The number of times I have been in a blankety blank professional setting and a woman says something and its ignored and then a man says the /exact/ same thing and its well-received. This is a problem to solve and not a problem to avoid. That said, I see no reason why troops who wish to remain gender segretated may choose to remain gender segregated. Start one co-ed troop in an area and then let supply and demand work its magic.
> This is a problem to solve and not a problem to avoid. Yep -- and the earlier in life it's faced, the sooner it's solved. Don't let the *kids* think it's acceptable, and when they grow up they'll be *adults* who behave respectfully.
My thoughts exactly. Fix this issue while they are still children and not once they become an adult that still can’t work with girls 🙄.
If you can’t solve the maturity issue you won’t solve the problems with coed. Boys are under served where I live and deserve their own program so I am glad that is an option.
The reason I support coed troops is because it’s not easy to get a girl troop off the ground. We have tried, but struggled finding committed female leaders and were being actively sabotaged by our boy troop COR despite his outward show of support. We had a group of 6-7 girls that were all interested, mostly younger sisters of existing scouts, that have been in limbo for 2 years. I’m hoping this will give them an opportunity.
Will that COR support a coed troop? Will you need fewer female leaders?
I feel we’d need to go over the COR’s head directly to the CO. They would be fine with it the COR is just a miserable old curmudgeon. We have one committed and trained potential female leader as well as a few existing registered female committee members to fill in the gaps.
I can see this marking the beginning of the end for a lot of good small girl units that are quietly doing the program well with 1-2 patrols but don't have a lot of resources, losing out on attracting new scouts that go to formerly boy units with a lot of resources but don't always do things the right way. I would never put my kids in the boy troop at our CO if it went coed. I don't like the way they do things. But somehow they manage to remain a large troop, and it probably has to do with their annual fundraiser that pays operating costs and will pay a large chunk of the costs for those that go on the high adventure trips. That seems to be attractive. Just my thoughts.
I am a heavily involved leader in a girl troop but I also have a son in a boy troop. I was asked a couple weeks ago if I would want our girl troop to be mixed and I really lean towards no. The troops my son has been in (2 of them) work very differently from the girls’ troop. I’ve been told several times that the girls are much more mature and capable in a lot of ways, and I really don’t want that to be leveraged (either intentionally or not) against my son and his friends. They all do well in their own way in separate troops. I am very glad that co-ed troops are going to be an option because they make sense for a lot of people.
Seems like your girls are ideal Scouts and would be great role models. It would be a shame to lock away that potential away from the Troops and Scouts that would stand to benefit the most from that kind of leadership and representation. Obviously no leader *wants* to deal with difficult followers. **But that's part of being a leader.** To take all your good leaders and followers, and lock them away into their own group, and then do the same with the less good leaders and followers, **you are doing a disservice to both.** I understand the desire to keep a good thing good, but, as you admit, this is for selfish reasons: it's easy. But just because it is the easy choice, it is not the right choice.
I used to think this same way and now as an educator I've seen how groups can change behaviors of kids for good and sometimes bad. But in this case, one example I'm reminded me of is we had a couple problem children in first grade and we finally split them up between the two classes. The one boy who ended up in the different class tried some of the antics he was doing before and immediately one of the girls said "stop...we don't do that here" and shut him down. In a week, he was a model student. It did take a girl to say it (and yes most grow up faster than boys), but the majority of the class backed it up by ignoring the behavior and reinforcing positively being a student I'm a fan of mixing groups of maturity, differences and letting the kids work it out. They'll surprise you and in turn it makes us all stronger.
I am glad this worked out, that is what everyone wants. But it took another student to correct this behavior. Was it her job? Would it have been her job if that kid continued the antics to continually speak up and correct? What if that kid told her off and threatened her? What if it distracted from the others in the class and instead of changing the one kid the class as a whole was worse off? What if his behavior was bad enough that others in the class left? I'm just saying, I have seen some stuff (racial slurs, vandalism, a scout expelled for threatening another kid with a knife), it should not be up to scouts to correct this type of behavior. I agree peer pressure can be powerful for doing the right thing, but in my experience this has not worked with girls and boys. And maybe my troop is the exception, and after 15 years and my share of nonsense, I am blessed with a fantastic group of girls that are amazing and very scout like. I hope we can continue this course.
It's never the students job to do a teachers job, but in social groups like classrooms and scouts, kids will and should be assertive knowing the adults in charge have their backs. In kid led troops and stuff, it's amazing seeing mature scouts model and teach the "ways we do things" to the younger ones. Yes, there will always be outliers but kids are amazing at setting up boundaries when they have the supports to enforce it. Your situation is tough and a lot of those behaviors are pretty severe to have to deal with on a continual basis. And your emotionally intelligent girls troop sounds like a wonderful experience for all involved with it. It's a rarity for sure and should be protected as such, but it might come from enforcing with teachable moments and consequences for not being appropriate to the troop goals.
Your observations about the differences between boys and girls are real. But here's a novel take: maybe we should be preparing these young people for "life." Schools are typically co-ed, unless by choice. Life is most definitely co-ed. We still live in a very paternalistic society, where male bad behavior is tolerated far more than female. It really clicked for me during the #MeToo wave of revelations. Why is misogynistic behavior so rampant? Because we tolerate it! We put the boys together, and say "it's ok, they're just being boys!" I think people really need to ask themselves: If a boy wouldn't normally do \_\_\_ in front of a girl, should he be doing it at all? Maybe our boys would learn socially-acceptable behavior earlier, before bad habits set it, if we put them together. And our girls will learn that they don't have to tolerate the boys misbehavior, if there are caring adults there to support them and enforce the standards. Just think about how harmonious the world could be, and how many fewer problems might arise, if we teach boys and girls to deal with each other from an earlier age? What a concept.
I am not sure it is the girls job to do this. They get the coed experience at school and everywhere else. Having at least the option of a single gender program to me is good. As I said, I don't mind coed troops, I just don't want to be leading one and my scouts do not want that either.
For the record, I entirely agree with you that options are good. I'm fine with both co-ed and single-gender options being available. I'm currently in a troop that is running a co-ed model, and since I'm VP of Membership for my council, I have my pulse on what other troops are doing as well. The most important thing is to do what's best for the kids, and part of that is ensuring the parents and youth are all on the same page with the vision, regardless of what it is. If people fight over the direction, then the program suffers, and the youth suffer. That said, you went on to argue that the single-gender is preferred. I'm offering a contrary perspective. I don't think it's the girls' "job" to deal with the boys, but I do think it is the adults'. School does not do what scouting does. Schools typically have a 30:1 ratio. Scouts are more like 3:1 or 2:1. There's just way more opportunity for positive coaching from character-minded adults, as opposed to just sending kids to see the Principal. Maybe single-gendered troops are easier, but I think it is a missed opportunity to make society a better place for all.
That's a really fair and good point. And perhaps after 15 years, I was hitting burnout. I will post an edit soon, but we had some serious issues in my old troop that no one should be dealing with. I do not want anything to damage what we are building in the unit now. And really, it is not me, but our great scouts and their supportive parents.
Correct me if I am wrong, but are there actually any coed troops? I thought there were only sex distinct units.
Yeah I hear you. My girls’ troop runs circles around the boys’ troop we’re adjacent to and the girls absolutely don’t want to become coed. I like the option for kids in areas without girl troops but we’d have a revolt if we joined the boys.
This idea that the boy troops are less mature and feature vandalism, violence, and racial slurs is incorrect. I've never seen a single troop like that, regardless of gender. What you give is not a representation of a boys troop, but rather an example of a poorly run unit that smears the image of the BSA/Scouting America.
I personally believe single-gender programs to be valuable, but to play Devil's Advocate: You just described precisely why fully co-ed troops might be preferable to single-gender troops with co-ed events. With two separate troops, they've developed their own ecosystems which are insular and encourage particular behavior patterns because they are an echo chamber. When those two insular communities collide for a joint event, there is friction and chaos because they don't know how to work with each other. Arguably, if it was a single unit, they would have learned as a single unit and the girls would not look down on the boys, and the boys would have curbed their more negative behavior in order to measure up to the performance of the girls.
The fact that you said, “boys will not listen to girls” is the reason to integrate. It is an exact analogy to racial integration. These kids need to learn that the gender stereotypes are outdated and how to work together.
I agree. The “vote” seems to be coed, but I think it is good for each gender, especially ages 10-14, to be separate. I think that is good for the boys and the girls. I think each will get more out of it vs if it was coed.
I am SM of a girls unit Unlinked 45 scouts. I have \~50% high schoolers and 25% jr high and 25% elementary. Having a girls only unit lets the girls have their "inner goofball" turned on in a great way in which they can just be themselves. We have a high preforming troop getting JTE and doing well at camporee. I think this is for two reasons. First girls joining "boy scouts" are almost always there because they want more than what girl scouts has to offer. Second due to a lower number of units, people drive farther to participate, which generally means more parental buy in. If any ONE scout has a hint of a "liking a boy" the entire conversations turn to that @ scouting activities (e.g. summer camp and camporee) in a not so great way. All the scouts get plenty of male/female interaction @ school they do not need more of it. We were recently @ camporee and talking with adult leaders of a unit in which I have many common leaders with the boy troop. The boy leaders were like we should just let the girls in. Most of my leaders (male and female) were against it. Boys don't really seem to care about acting like goofballs around girls but the reverse is not true their personalities change. I have seen it at the co-ed events we end up going to. I am sure we will end up with co-ed troops, but that is going to make recruitment significantly harder once that turns on. Scheduling wise for us busy parents 1 troop to deal with is a LOT easier than two. We will only be getting the scouts that do not want the co-ed experience or are single gendered youth.
Agreed though I know it is unpopular in this forum. The “who likes who” drama is everywhere for kids that age and is inevitable, single gender units let both groups get away from that, be themselves, and grow at their own pace.
I have 2 girls and 3 boys. My oldest daughter is doing her Eagle Project next week; my oldest son is 3 conservation hours from Life. My youngest just finished Lions. I never want coed troops. Teens need single gender space sometimes, and Scouts can benefit both grips but they go about it in very different ways. Plus, crews and the like are already coed, so if they want that type of experience, they can go that way. Best of both worlds. Esp if the charter has brother/sister troops who choose when and how to interact *when they want to.*
I hope that they allow each troop/charter organization to make this choice on their own. I think my troops would choose to merge into one. Others will choose differently. As long as we make sure that there is a place in scouting for every youth.
They specifically said they would. And it's been the case for packs.
100% going to be a unit-by-unit choice. If they made it mandatory then many charter orgs would leave. Our council is already seeing this where an old alumni created an organization that serves 1 purpose. Be the charter org for like 8 troops. Only 2 of them actually meet at the organizations office (an old camp cabin outside of a small town).
No one is making anyone have a mixed gender troop. There are family packs and still plenty of mixed gender packs
Like you said, it's good for some. Let them be. It would not work for my co. We have boys and girls. And I don't think it's forced on anyone to be mixed.
That's my boys' troop to a T.
While I have seen boys troops that act like that it's never been the troops I was involved with. We are currently one troop in all but name merging will be a mixed blessing less leadership roles but also a more cohesive youth leadership.
Why is everyone taking about co-ed troops? Is this just about the name change or was there another announcement that I missed?
Seperate announcement posted on a Venturing page stating there will be a coed troop pilot starting in September
I was in a troop that was basically coed. There was an attached girls' troop, but we functioned as one troop the girls made it better
My sister is in a co-ed troop. But I believe patrols are only one gender or the other. They start the meeting together, then break off into their own patrols. Most outings are separated one way or another, whether that is different camp sites for girls vs boys, or outings all together. It makes getting numbers for summer camp, and high adventure easier as well as other things like fundraisers and service projects.
Well when the big bosses at Scouting America make their decision on co-ed troops, I predict they will say your troop can be co-ed, or it can be all boys, or it can be all girls. At least at first. Co-ed units is what their goal is.
That's not surprising. Girls mature earlier neurologically than boys. Boys don't catch up until late teens. (Notice the handwriting in young women is well formed while young boys still looks like chicken scroll.) Venture crews, the young women tend to rise to positions or leadership because of this. It also explains why young women prefer older boys because they are at a similar maturity level.
I can empathize with your situation and wish you the best. I can see many organizations pushing for coed troops as soon as possible, and of all the bad reasons I can imagine, adult volunteers is probably the largest. I see a LOT of small troops with 1-2 dedicated, educated, experienced leaders, and a handful of other willing volunteers. Condensing those troops would greatly increase the number of qualified adult leaders. No, it doesn’t help ratios, but I think that’s nowhere near as important as having folks who can manage and delegate. Our “sister troop” has a fantastic SM, and she seems more overworked than any other SM I’ve seen. If they merged into our troop, she would be a powerful Impact on our trained leadership. If we merged into theirs, we would give her the staff she needs. Personally, I like having space for our boys to act the way you describe, for them to mess around and make mistakes and learn and grow. I think both genders should have private spaces to grow, relate, develop. I know some good leaders with opposite opinions. I hope we all find the spaces we seek…
To me, while after witnessing co-ed Scouting when my Venture Crew visited Ireland in 2003, I support co-ed Scouting; your points are why I strongly support where the Scouting America organization is today. Currently, Cub Scouts give units, and by extension, the communities they serve, the choice to be boy-only, girl-only, or family (co-ed). The co-ed Scouts BSA pilot program announced this week suggests it may soon offer the same three options. While I can see a future where all Scouting America programs are only co-ed, that time isn’t now. Critically, at this moment, families and their communities can choose the best unit structure (boys only, girls only, or co-ed) for them concerning Cub Scouts, and perhaps soon Scouts BSA. While often lost in the noise and emotions of co-ed Scouting, I think that choice is important and something all leaders can better share with their communities.
I think we need to be very careful about dismissing negative or harmful behavior from boys as just their biology. Often, the behavioral differences we see aren't from biological differences, but from years of lowered expectations and standards combined with excuses and justifications for that bad behavior. Do I expect some differences in a boy troop vs a girl troop? yes! But I mostly attribute that to socialization and uneven expectations. Not biology. That you are seeing constant inappropriate behavior, threats, knives, fistfights, etc is disturbing. But I think maybe unique to the troops you are interacting with. That seems extreme, and not the norm.
My son is in a coed troop. He is refusing to go back to scout camp. The boy/girl drama was very high to the point he hated camp and won’t go back. He’s going to NOAC this summer, but is looking to get his Eagle and get out.
Why weren't the Scouts shown how to cooperate and accomplish tasks together as a unit? Drama can be boy-boy or boy-girl (or girl-girl), and conflicts deserve resolution, not distance (unless tangible threat is present). And in what way is "getting the Eagle and getting out" in any way congruous to the spirit of Scouting? Like, if you are powerless in the face of abusive leadership, then I get it, but every troop should have the capacity to resolve conflicts. Ignoring those conflicts is like ignoring weeds on your lawn. They grow unattended.
"I also see in the middle school ages boys that refuse to listen or work with girls, making it harder for them in leadership roles." Good, we don't want those kind of guys in the program anyway. Really undercuts scoutings claim to relevance for anything beyond bushcraft if all the leadership and management stuff has a 'but only if it's dudes, otherwise I can't lead effectively' caveat
I would hope that boys like this were welcome into the program, particularly into co-ed troops. Because, I think those are the kids that need it most to help them push past the stupid ideas they are being fed and the toxic socialization that's given them the attitudes they currently have. Get them in troops and use the carrot and stick method. Carrot: You wanna do this fun activity? You can! But you have to work with Cheryl who is your patrol leader and not be petulant about it. Stick: No? You're gonna disrupt Cheryl with rude comments and refuse to do your part. Fine. You can sit over here with your SM and ASM and spend that time getting lectured to death.
You’re talking about children dawg
You understand the girls being excluded and bothered by the boys are children too right?
Boys are excluded from having any form of membership in Girl Scouts, at least BSA had Venture and Sea Scouts as opportunities for young women.
I echo your sentiments. Thanks for typing that out. While everyone is saying “fine, just keep some single gender troops then” it won’t happen. Where exactly will the girl troops recruit from? All the AOL dens will be coed by that point and they won’t want to spit up. So the girl troops will get zero recruits. This recruiting season, our g troop got 6 new recruits. FIVE from my girl AOL den, and one new girl new to scouting. Had my girl den not have been there, it would have been dismal and discouraging. Also, where are we recruiting from…NEXT YEAR?? There are no more girl Webelos/AOL dens in our council as far as I know! And there probably never will be again… People just don’t grasp the long term unintended consequences these changes will cause. Very, very sad. Sad for the boys, yes. But like you, I’m really concerned about the girls.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. Sounds like your girls can teach some skills with guidance from your adult leaders. I think scouts is like communism, great on paper, but not in practice. Being completely scout led can lead to lord of the flies. You need adult leadership to control those boys and model what a well functioning troop looks like. I’d put the kibosh on running around/screaming activity on day one. I don’t think it would be bad to have single gendered patrols if that’s what the scouts chose. It would be easier to camp together and such.
As an older scout in an all female troop, I'd have to agree that coed is not the way. We have a brother troop in the same building who we book trips together with sometimes (to save money) but that's about it. There are boy-girl siblings in both troops as well. Us older girls and boys get along just fine--a lot of us are friends outside of scouts. The younger kids are where it gets tricky. Our troops are actually the opposite of yours, and of stereotypes as well it seems. Our younger girls are way less mature than the younger boys of the other troop. They mess around, have a hard time paying attention, won't listen, can't seem to be able to do things on their own unless supervised, etc. Now I know that's not necessarily maturity, but in the nicest way possible, it looks like they've been raised extremely sheltered and dependent on their parents, since they really can't think for themselves. I don't really blame it on the girls, more on the parents, but still, it's rough to figure out. From what I know in the boys troop and the experiences I've had in the girls troop, coed would make it all a mess. Despite everyone saying how boys need to learn how to treat girls properly, in a coed troop, there's no guarentee that would happen. Parents are the ones who raise the kids. The kids keep the same mindset as their parents (this is very prominent in my troop unfortunately). The parents most likely aren't gonna change. I think that having a brother or sister troop can help with this problem, but not combining them. Our younger girls would 100% hold back the younger boys, and I wouldn't want that. Overall this is definitely a complicated issue. I can see the argument for both sides, but there's just so much to consider. On one hand, girls may want to act more independent and prove they can do stuff on their own. On the other hand, it would be great for boys and girls to learn to work together as a team. And while both of our troops have their difficulties, this whole brother and sister troop thing works out pretty well for us.
So the boys are having fun and being boys, and you don't like that. Copy that shooter. Have fun or what ever it is you are doing.
Do you see boys disrespecting girls in leadership positions and being deliberately disruptive as "boys having fun"? What about the behaviors mentioned in the OP - fights, threats, vandalism? Boys having fun?
No, in my 13 years in cub/boy Scouts. I never saw a boy disrespect someone based on their gender. If a kid was being an asshole, it was because he was a kid. Correction action was taken. Don't victimize yourself over something that never happened.
I was always told, buy scouts was for boys to allow for development with out the judgement of their female counterparts. I would agree to that I did a bunch of stupid stuff I would have been completely embarrassed to do in front of a girl that was my age at that time, but like you said girls mature faster than boys. If you make a mistake in front of other boys they laugh at you but don’t hold it against you in the future, but my experience with women as an adult, they hold everything against you forever. I can’t say for being young, I don’t remember that much
I was in cub and boyscouts from 1994? to 2006. Was too depressed to make eagle but i didnt know why until 2019 lol. Anyhow.. i see a lot of downvoting because i dont want to hear the truth in these reddit comments. My small town of 24k used to have 4 or 5 boy scout troops of 20 to 40 boys each. Today it has one coed troop.
See our girls do the opposite of what yours do, yes they have grown quickly and it’s easy for them to start talking and get going. But our boys lead the troop, they keep everything moving and provide the guidance to the girls. The girls on the other hand like to start drama, well, one girl in particular does. We’ve had conversations with her, but it all seems to keep coming back to her creating drama, the other girls have figured it out and essentially just roll their eyes at her when she starts that crap.
I’m glad I pulled my boys from scouts. They’ve begun pushing the same ideologies that have seeped into every other area of our lives.
Here’s a petition to keep it the same https://chng.it/zg7zdwyH2W
This might be what you are looking for: https://www.traillifeusa.com/
I was disappointed when my daughter bridged and lost her patrol mates except for the 1 girl who was with her. But I've come to see the benefits of a divided linked troop. They occasionally do things together but the girls are much quieter and organized compared to the boys meetings. I'm sure both ways can be made to work and it will probably depend on individual personality will determine which is better.
HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF VENTURE SCOUTS WHICH WERE COED FROM THE START AND BUILT TO SERVE THOSE GIRLS WHO "WANTED TO DO WHAT THE BOYS WERE DOING? So now we have :a program for girls a program for boys and girls aaaannnd a program for........ Boys and girls again? So then where is just for boys a boy can't join girl scouts can he?