What has the Scouts’ situation revealed to parents?

I got a bad feeling when I heard on the radio that the Boy Scouts of America would allow girls into their programs on October 11, 2017. You might think, why a bad feeling? Girls being allowed into an organization is a good thing, right? Yet from what I heard that day, it sounded as if the Girl Scouts were not considered in the Boy Scouts’ decision.

Since then, I’ve been doing some digging. Here’s my take on what I think parents need to know:

• The Boy Scouts have shown a deep, fundamental disrespect for the inherent value, contributions, and efforts of women and girls by not collaborating fully with the Girl Scouts organization. more
• There is a critical disconnect between the values the Boy Scouts claim to be teaching our kids and what the leadership is actually demonstrating. more
• The Boy Scouts are basing their programming for girls on the concept of “separate but equal,” which the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled as “inherently unequal”  back in 1954. more
• The Boy Scouts haven’t done any soul searching to rectify the maligning of women and girls that was a significant part of their founding. more
• No two girls are exactly alike, nor are two boys. What needs are not being met by viewing our kids solely through their biological sex/gender? more
• I’ve identified problems that will happen moving forward because of these dynamics. more

The Boy Scouts have shown a deep, fundamental disrespect for the inherent value, contributions, and efforts of women and girls by not collaborating fully with the Girl Scouts organization.

The definition of respect includes (1) to have due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of, and (2) to avoid harming or interfering with.

The leadership of the Boy Scouts of America has failed at both of these. 

More than 50 million girls and women have been involved in Girl Scouts since its founding over 100 years ago—and more than 2 million girls and women are currently involved. The Girl Scouts have been developing and honing their programming for girls the entire time, which includes leadership development and outdoor experiences.

It is respectful to collaborate with the Girls Scouts, as wanting to include girls in Boy Scouts’ programming will have an impact on the Girl Scouts’ organization. Collaborating with Girl Scouts is also just plain smart; they have a lot of expertise to draw upon.

There is a critical disconnect between the values the Boy Scouts claim to be teaching our kids and what the leadership is actually demonstrating.

Girl Scouts’ National Board of Directors’ President, Kathy Hopinkah Hannan, stated in a letter sent to Boy Scouts’ National Board of Directors’ President, Randall Stephenson, on August 21, 2017 (7 weeks before the radio announcement):

I am “deeply concerned about reports of aggressive posturing by Boy Scout leaders towards Girl Scout leaders…outlining the proposed girls program. This includes everything from disparaging and untrue remarks about Girl Scout programming, to subtle implications about the weakness of Girl Scouts’ long term market strength. Starting off any program when people are feeling bullied is not in keeping with the founding ideals of either Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.”

Then “Hannan wrote that [the Girl Scouts] were ‘disappointed with the lack of transparency’ from BSA in testing the programs for girls and said that BSA refused to engage with Girl Scouts despite ‘repeated efforts.’ ”

I am writing on behalf of the Executive Committee of the National Board of Girls Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) as a follow-up to our call of August 16 regarding the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) covert campaign to recruit girls into programs run by the Boy Scouts. For more than 100 years, our organizations have worked in a respectful and complimentary manner, and we have been mutually supportive of one another’s mission to serve America’s youth. It is therefore unsettling that BSA would seek to upend a paradigm that has served both boys and girls so well through the years by moving forward with a plan that would result in fundamentally undercutting Girl Scouts of the USA. Despite our repeated efforts to engage you in open and honest dialogue about this matter, you delayed conversing with us until, seemingly, a decision was already made.

Hannan’s letter is carefully worded, as I presume she knew her letter would be made public. She would not use the word “covert” lightly and also states that the Boy Scouts “delayed conversing with us.” To date, on the BSA’s website, there is no apology or explanation.

Are these the kind of men we want our boys to become? Is this the treatment we want our girls to expect as women?

The Scout Law states a scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” I do not see trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, or brave behavior in how the Boy Scouts treated the Girl Scouts.

The Scout Mission is “to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law.” I do not see ethical or moral behavior in how the Boy Scouts treated the Girl Scouts.

In our culture, we often have the tendency to side with a man’s version of events when they differ from a woman’s version. So, in this case, if the Boy Scouts are fine with how they handled themselves, then it needs to be fine with everyone. Yet in any conversation (or collaboration), if one person doesn’t feel heard or respected, that conversation is a failure.

The Boy Scouts’ disrespect is particularly alarming as they market themselves as the shaper of youth and future leaders. I do not want a leader who dismisses, ignores, or bulldozes the contributions, insights, needs, and wishes of women and girls, or any segment of the population. We need leaders who will move us toward a fairer, healthier, and more evolved world—not unilaterally make decisions that impact others without including those “others” in their decisions.

The Boy Scouts are basing their programming on the concept of “separate but equal,” which the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled as “inherently unequal”  back in 1954.

It states “Scouts BSA will be single gender – all girl troops or all boy troops” in their “frequently asked questions” section of their website. This separating of people to avoid commingling was proven ineffective with segregation. As of this writing, we read on the Boy Scouts’ website’s homepage:  “Welcome to the Boy Scouts of America.” Hmm, that doesn’t sound like an organization for girls to me.

While it’s obvious that Kathy Hopinkah Hannan was a girl herself, this is still fundamentally important. She knows what it feels like to grow up a girl in our culture.  She writes about the Boy Scouts’ separate troops: “the inevitable reality will be that the experience is either co-ed [girls and boys in the same troop], or one in which one gender is relegated to the sidelines.”

The Boy Scouts haven’t done any soul searching to rectify the maligning of women and girls that was a significant part of their founding.

When the Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 “tensions between men and women were prevalent. ” ¹ 

Around that time, “the majority of men went from predominantly owning and controlling their means of work to working outside the home.” ² This meant men started working for “someone else,” another man who then had control over his work life. People saw men changing because of this and considered it a crisis in masculinity–and women were blamed.

To rectify this identified crisis, boys and men were intentionally separated from girls and women. “The revitalization of organizations for boys such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the creation of the Boy’s Brigades, Knights of King Arthur and the Boy Scouts all served to reinforce [the] dominant [form of] masculinity.” “Men’s organizations also flourished with the rise of the lodge and male fraternity designed to organize against the ‘feminization’ of men.” ³

“There was widespread white male panic in the United States about the feminization of society and the need to preserve masculine toughness. From the creation of the Boy Scouts to Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, a public campaign tried to revitalize manhood as a cultural basis for revitalizing male-identified society and, with it, male privilege.” ⁴

According to Ernest Thompson Seton in 1910, one of the founders of the Boy Scouts in the United States and co-author of the first official handbook for Boy Scouts of America, “women were turning ‘robust, manly, self-reliant boyhood into a lot of flat chested cigarette smokers with shaky nerves and doubtful vitality.’ ” ⁵ 

The Boy Scouts’ sentiments toward women and girls are demonstrated in the numerous lawsuits against the Boy Scouts, ranging from women wanting to be scoutmasters (Boy Scouts of America v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 1987) to girls wanting to join (Yeaw  v. Boy Scouts of America, 1997). The Boy Scouts fought against these girls’ and women’s wishes every time.

No two girls are exactly alike, nor are two boys. What needs are not being met by viewing our kids solely through their biological sex/gender?

When kids are grouped by their gender, they define themselves more by their gender (and all the stereotypes associated with it), feel more anxiety in mixed-gender situations, and have fewer friends of a different gender.

When an activity is single gender, sexism is nurtured as the activity creates an isolated, “green house” environment for tiny shoots of sexist thought to grow unchallenged and strengthen.

The Global Early Adolescent Study shows that “sexism is at the root of some key risks facing girls—and boys—around the world,” including in the United States.

I’ve identified problems that will happen moving forward because of these dynamics.

Here are some example scenarios I thought of:

• A girl troop needs a space at the same time that a boy troop needs it. What is the process for deciding who gets to use the space? Will the boy troop usually or always get preference? If not, will the boys be resentful? If so, will girls be learning “their place”–that they always come second to boys?
• A woman troop leader has a strong disagreement with a man troop leader. What are the verbal conflict resolution steps that will be followed? Who will apply pressure? Who will expect to get their way? Who will be expected to give in? What harassment will the woman troop leader face if she doesn’t back down?
• A girl is faster/stronger/smarter than a boy in some scouting event or activity. How will the other boys treat that boy scout? How will that boy scout feel? How will the girl scout be received by her male peers? What training will the troop leaders have had to role model and guide all the kids through these likely scenarios to avoid shame, stereotypes, and hostility.

When these girls and boys become adults, what will happen in these scenarios:

• A young woman in a college dorm changes her mind about having sex with a young man she likes. Will she speak up? If she does, will he listen to her and stop? If he stops, will he be angry with her? Or will he accept that she is not on this planet to serve his wishes above her own?
• A husband feels strongly about something that his wife has a different, equally strong feeling about. Will she need to cave in and will he expect her to? If she doesn’t cave in, will he be stunned and angry? Or worse?
• What happens when it’s time to vote for a political candidate and one is a man and the other is a woman? Will a former scout ever be able to vote for a woman (instead of a man) in a top job even when she is more qualified?

If the Boy Scouts had approached their decision-making process with the goals of being both constructive and respectful they would have done one of these options:

• Collaborated with the Girls Scouts to create a new program for families who want scouting for both their daughters and sons in one place. This would have respected each organization’s expertise; demonstrated innovation, mutually respectful leadership and teamwork; created an opportunity to invent a hybrid program using each organization’s strengths; and offered the solution some families are asking for. Families who wanted to remain with single-gender activities could stay with either scouting organization’s original programming.

• Accepted the smaller number of boy scouts and concentrated on providing quality programming to those members, while also decreasing the Boy Scouts of America’s personnel, infrastructure and operations costs.

• Created innovative programming to increase membership among boys. If I had my wish, their programming would include the development of empathy, verbal conflict resolution, an understanding of intersectionality, emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and the ability to tell the stories of the many unheralded women and girls who have contributed to our world.

• Recognized, from the input of busy parents, or–even better–because they realize they’ve been misguided from the beginning, that there is a need for one scouting organization to serve all youth and start talks with the Girl Scouts about co-creating one. This would also involve having a new, inclusive name in place before the announcement.

By working with the Girl Scouts respectfully and effectively, the Boy Scouts would have demonstrated what productive leadership looks like. They would have shown their youth what it means to work together for the greater good of all.

To the Boy Scouts of America, it’s not too late. You can still demonstrate respect, teamwork, and humility. We all make mistakes. You can apologize, make amends, and start anew. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts both have something worthy to contribute to our better future, and you can model for all of us how to make amends and collaborate.

1 Page 233 to 234, An Introduction to Masculinities by Jack S. Kahn

2 Page 233 to 234, An Introduction to Masculinities by Jack S. Kahn

3 Page 233 to 234, An Introduction to Masculinities by Jack S. Kahn

4 Page 229, The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy by Allan G. Johnson

5 Page 233 to 234, An Introduction to Masculinities by Jack S. Kahn