When I was a Boy Scout a good friend of mine was a Girl Scout. A couple of times we compared what our respective troops did. Her Girl Scout troop didn’t go on as many camping trips, and didn’t have the equivalent of the Camporee, where several troops would camp and compete. They sold cookies, we sold raffle tickets for a side of beef. I wished we could sell cookies.
The differences really disappeared when we compared merit badge requirements, especially the science ones, since we were both interested in science. There was an entomology merit badge that I was working on. The Girl Scour equivalent was called something different, but the requirements were the same.
I know this is a museum and not the organizations, but I really hope nothing’s changed in the Girl Scouts itself.
Edit: There are things about the BSA I would like to see change, and if I had kids I’d be looking at alternative organizations. It’s the gender blindness in the merit badge requirements that I hope hasn’t changed.
Good point. It’s easy to blame the museum on this one (and deservedly so because they should have known better), but I doubt they did it in a vacuum. The Girls Scouts have these programs, but many times it’s up to the leaders to push them.
My daughter is a Girl Scout and with the exception of summer camp which she loves, often it feels like she is only a vehicle to sale cookies.
No, women’s soccer is soccer played by women, unlike tennis - which I just learned about 5 minutes ago - the rules for men and women are the same.
The people who are allowed in usually do not have a problem with segregation and discrimination. I’d say he’d sind a different tune if the BSA were a whites-only organisation and he of a different colour or if he were an atheist or agnostic.
And yet we manage to run co-ed schools w/out the world collapsing. My gut feeling is that single sex schools are successful (by giving their pupils a better-than-average education) mostly for two reasons: They usually have a more uniform clientele due to discrimination and, paradoxically, prevent segregation and anti-discrimination by, for example, actually concentrating on girls in science and maths classes.
For the same reason why Ebay, Craigslist and Facebook dominate their fields, yes.
I do not quite understand this sentence, as I don’t follow sports. Only compared to whom and what constitutes a “seperate pro soccer league”?
Yes, and that’s the problem. Segregation would be much more palpable, but for some weird reason, it usually ends with someone having to get up and sit at the end of the bus.
I think women’s football in the UK is amateur/semi-pro. Presumably the US/Canada league is the only one that pays well enough to be considered professional?
I’m not sure that paycheck amount is what makes it “professional” given the average paycheck for women’s soccer players and that they typically find housing in homes of supporters or other host families. With teammates for roommates.
They might pay them, but it appears that it’s only done because they legally have to. We’ve had two leagues fold quickly and a lot of us are really hoping this one can pull through.
WNBA. I’d probably care more if I didn’t find basketball really dull. I’m only interested in the Sonics coming back if they bring a hockey team with them.
I was a Girl Scout for one year. I come from a family where my mom and all her sisters were scouts through their childhood. Unfortunately, the troop in my area was about the same experience your friend had, and I didn’t enjoy it - even though I had friends in other areas who were in the GSA. We simply didn’t do much. My mom didn’t like the changes in the GSA, and as a working parent she honestly didn’t have the time to start a more positive troop. Instead, I was pulled from the program and not placed in anything else.
@jandrese LDoBe and I both described positive experiences (him for himself, me for my cousins) within the BSA in troops that were inclusive and encouraged tolerance of all kinds of people. It sounds like your own was good as well, and I hope it was for you. The concern we both voiced was with the group’s national charter - which is not really followed or accepted by many local groups. It does seem there is a strong schism within the BSA.
Thanks for that. I also think that Scouts - which is supposed to be a service group, where kids learn how to treat other people with dignity - is exactly the sort of place where kids of various sexes should be commingling in education.
@chgoliz I agree with them. Why is it a “boy’s only” event to learn about Chemistry, Engineering or Astronomy? This makes no sense.
I suspect that the programs are tailored so that the kids earn a merit badge. (That’s how this sort of thing worked when I was a boy scout and how it worked when I’ve volunteered for girl scout programs.[1]) Since the different organizations have different requirements, you get multiple programs. The non-scouting activities aren’t gendered.
My Mom did both the pack leader (boy scout) and whatever the girl scout equivalent is. The Girl Scout organization was a much much bigger pain in the ass apparently. If you wanted to take boy scouts on a camping trip, it was just a matter of getting everybody together and going out into the woods. If you wanted to do anything with the Girl Scouts you had to collect all of their insurance and health paperwork and keep them on your person at all times. There was a lot more red tape and general headaches. My sister wasn’t terribly interested in the whole thing anyway and they dropped out after a few years.
I didn’t even ask my mom to try. She was working by then, and I didn’t think she had the time to do it. My grandmother helped run the troop my mom was in, but didn’t lead - she was a working physician. So she made herself as available as possible at events. My great grandmother was heavily involved in troop work and in the Young Farmers projects all the kids did.
I’m not altogether sure what constitutes a professional sport and what not, but I know that there is a German soccer league for women and the prize money for a win in the world cup finals is some 60.000 Euros.
Howard Johnson
Brian Wolff
Bob Stewart