Can you spot the difference between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts science workshops?

No all sports. And while the competitions may usually be segregated, both genders usually practice the same sports. There is no special men’s soccer or a special women’s chess. Granted, I’m not the biggest sports fan, but from the top of my head only gymnastics/ballet seem to be heavily gendered by making use of body types typically found in certain sexes and beach volleyball, which seems to be heavily geared to appeal to male voyeurs.

Tennis would probably be the most well-known sport that has different rules with women playing shorter matches (three sets) than men (five sets).

Isn’t there? There certainly is womens’ soccer, and also the other kind. Maybe it’s not male, it’s just non-female.

I wonder if the newcomer who thinks segregated scouting is a “terrible thing” was ever a scout? My son is almost an Eagle, and it doesn’t look all that terrible to me. He even has fun sometimes.

In the US, there are several coed scouting organizations, but they are much less popular than the boy and girl scouts. My feeling is that boys and girls are different - especially in the adolescent years. Single-sex schools are also very popular in most cities. This is not because boys are icky, or girls are icky. It’s just because they learn in different ways, and often learn better when less distracted by the opposite sex.

It’s not for everyone; but single-sex schooling - or scouting - has its advantages. I hear that Girl Scouts is pretty strong on sciency stuff - I suspect the museum is more at fault than the parents who run the troops.

EDIT: I’m surprised to find that only the US and Canada have separate womens’ pro soccer league.

Same rules though. There’s some differences in style, it’s less of the long ball game, not so hard into the tackles and there’s more of a technical/tactical focus that makes it very intriguing to watch, but these are just trends and may be down to the difference in coaching. The intensity and commitment are absolutely equal.

The Australian W-League (shown on ABC on Sunday arvo) is also a pro soccer league. And great footy.

(Edited to remove traces of snark. The utter contempt that women’s sport is held in really pisses me off and it tends to leak through sometimes. )

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In Toronto the Ontario Science Center offers 3 sleep overs a year for just Girl Guides and 2 additional sleepovers that are open the Girl Guides, Scouts and families.

I often see disparages in programs offered to Guides and Scouts (sometimes one way sometimes the other). I suspect that has more do to with familiarity with the program by staff members then anything else.

Being American, I hold mens’ and womens’ soccer in equal contempt.

It is said that men have more upper-body strength, while women tend to have more stamina. Back when I did martial arts, it seemed that way to me. Very rarely were boys allowed to compete against girls, or men against women, but it never seemed like either was “better.” I can imagine those differences would matter in soccer as well.

UNFAIR. Boys can haz sparkles too!

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Men and women teams rarely compete against each other. What is expected is that the rules for each game should be the same. This isn’t always the case. In the forthcoming women’s World Cup, Canada has decided that they should play on pitches that would be banned in the men’s game.

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Chemicals sparkle sometimes.

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Being a scout master myself, I have to say a few things here…

  1. I am shocked.

  2. Here in Austria, the boy scouts and girl scouts organisations have merged in 1976. Membership is approximately balanced between the genders, with the same program for both.

  3. The BSA does not represent the values of Scouting. Scouting is supposed to be inclusive.

  4. I happen to be an atheist. This has never been a problem for anyone.

  5. There are openly gay scout leaders in Austria. This has not caused a scandal.

Austria is about 70% Catholic and has a reputation for being more socially conservative than most western European nations.

And I have a favor to ask from all Americans: when talking about the BSA on the Internet, never leave out the “of America”. It gives the rest of us boy scouts a bad rap.

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Unfortunately (or unfortunately depending how you look at it), the BSA accepting gay scout leaders is more likely within the next few years than accepting atheists ever. But according to the BSA, it’s not about religion but about faith-- and I think everyone has faith. Sadly, to many adults leaders, faith is a blue eyed Jesus. But there are troops that are more open and tolerant. You just have to look around.

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Scouting in the UK has been open to all genders for decades, there is also the Girl Guides, which is exclusively for girls.

Scouting UK also run this - http://www.flagscouts.org.uk/ - “FLAGS is the National Scout Active Support Unit which actively supports the recruitment, retention and ongoing support of LGBT adults within The Scout Association in the UK. This support extends to those already in Scouting or those considering joining Scouting who are questioning their sexuality.”

So seem far removed from the US version of scouting,

When I was a little boy in the BSA our troop ignored all that shit completely. I lived in a diverse city neighbourhood at the time & I can’t imagine the troop having more than 3-4 members if they had pushed the HeySues on us at all.

There isn’t one reason in the world that the schedule as shown can’t apply to both agencies. the GSUSA & BSA are separate agencies but the museum isn’t.

BSA would change a lot faster if people stopped coddling them.

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Since scouting is the topic, I’ll put in a plug here for this excellent organization promoting inclusion in the Boy Scouts:

http://www.inclusivescouting.net/

I don’t have a problem with separate scouts, but the science museum is a fool to not just market those classes to everyone. My girl has gone to several week long science camps offered by the local science museum for the past two summers. They have a variety of topics, like animals, weather, robotics, etc. open to all genders and a range of ages.

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Given the amount of them I saw when I lived in Savannah, I suspect Girl Guides don’t do anything except visit Juliette Gordon Low’s house (and sell their overpriced cookies) :smile:

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For what it is worth, Girls can join a Boy scout troop under the Venture program if they want. At least that was the case when I was a scout (back in the 90s). It’s mostly intended for girls who want to get out in the wilderness instead of doing arts and crafts. It is targeted towards the older kids, I don’t think there is a similar program in Cub Scouts.

In my experience as an educator, sometimes girl-specific sessions are offered so that the girls don’t feel intimidated by the boys in the class. Or, sometimes they’ve already gotten that message that “X is for boys”, so by making something like a “Girls-only robotics” class, they can feel like it actually IS for them. I’d have loved a girls-only woodshop growing up so that I wasn’t the only girl in the class getting harassed all day.

But this is not a particularly good example of that reasoning. They’re not offering a girls-only version of the SAME classes, but a totally different class. So I agree that for this they should combine the Scout groups and offer them all the same classes.

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For what it is worth, the BSA leadership is pretty far removed from your average scout troop, for better or for worse. As a result troops will run the gamut on religious issues. Mine met in a church but other than giving a shout out to God in some of the pledges it basically never came up. But you can’t help but to notice how different things can be when camped next to a troop that has a 30 minute sermon every morning and regular prayertime breaks.

Yes, Venture Crews are only for kids 13 and older (boys and girls). Also, they are not as common as the Boy Scout Troops.