Boy Scouts
 

That's pretty cool.


Rumor has it girls will be allowed in soon.

About time. I was in the venture scouts. Been coed in the UK for a generation

That's a cool story

Yeah, we have venture scouts here too. They are an awesome organization. I wish I knew about them when my daughter was younger. By the time I knew, she was too involved in other stuff to drop it and join venture scouts. She had been in Girl Scouts and was unimpressed.

The rumors I have heard are that girls will soon be able to join Boy Scouts.

I remember trying the Girl Guides out - it looked like it would be really fun - I attended for about 5 or 6 weeks and all we seemed to do was play a few shitty group games, bake stuff, and listen to morally uplifting stories. It was mainly baking though.

Yah, fuck that.




[ETA] I think Mum would have preferred it had I reached that decision prior to her shelling out for the Girl Guide uniform around week 3

Anecdotal evidence, but my daughter's experience with Girl Scouts was very similar. I'm sure each local group has its own culture.

so in the UK, it the girls were Guides and it was Brownies, Guides and Rangers, and the boys were Scouts and it was Cubs, Scouts and Ventures for the boys, but the latter was co-ed for most troops (only way to keep the boys in). Isn't Ventures something different here?

I served my time in Brownies and Guides before defecting......

Venturing is run by the Boy Scouts, but is co-ed, and for ages 14-21.

ah thanks.

Why don't they just call it "Scouts" and let all kids in? We'd have a lot less offended.

That's a good idea, then they could combine both organizations into one, including all their activities and badges and such.

They don't need no stinkin' badges.

In the new organization, they'll all get merit tattoos!

Because for girls/young women, Scouts/Guides can often be the place where they learn they are not the inferior gender and they can be leaders and can put up tents and can tie knots and don't need a guy to do it. Some of them don't get that at home, but are allowed to be in the Girl Scouts/Guides because it's for girls so must be a girly thing.....

....and I'm really surprised to find myself saying that -because I came to hate it by then end, but I have also been surprised by the level of macho sexism proselytized by women I've encountered since moving here, so I totally get it's value now.

e.g. this pile of shit

Butterflies are for girls

I've got a blue butterfly. It's on my taskbar. Clicking on it connects me to my email.
Perhaps the boy's blue butterfly idea didn't come directly from nature and his parents didn't want him walking around with a Microsoft logo on his face. IT COULD HAPPEN! :p:

I'm with monster, at 11 to 14 girls going through puberty are embarrassed and tend to withdraw. Girls that age have a lot of pressure on them. Doing activities with other girls, even the same things the boys do, will boost their confidence in themselves, and a chance to mix other girls going through the same pressures.

Isn't it a paramilitary organization? We need everyone to be able to manage basic skills

Hmmm, is learning how to be resourceful in case one has to deal with the occurrence and aftermath of a tornado, hurricane, flood, earthquake, epidemic, wildfire; or, blizzard primarily the purview of the military? How about leadership and management?

I suppose some of those skills could be used in case of riots, wars, and acts of terrorism; but, does that really conjure up a paramilitary label with most people?

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Don't even know how to respond to something so ridiculous.

I'll be over here no longer interested.

*shrug* it's okay, I'm wrong.

As a kid, I always assumed they were proto-fascist, but a lot of them turned out to be run of the mill pot-heads, so we were both wrong. One of our local troops does a lot of good work with boys with disabilities so I've come around to the point where I figure generalizations are less than helpful.

It's purely up to the leaders. Some leaders use the scouts as props in a military LARP, and others just go camping.

The founder, Lord Baden-Powell, from what I know of him, was of the LARP persuasion.

As a kid I was not aware proto-fascists existed.

As a 50 year old man, I don't know what the fuck a proto-fascist even is.

I wonder how many 15 year olds know what a proto-fascist is, or even how to spell it.

I wonder how many 15 year olds 30 years ago knew what a proto-fascist was?

If I had a teenage kid, and he/she knew what a proto-fascist was, I think I'd take him/her to the vet and have him/her put down.

As a kid, I thought they were dorks. But ROTC, yeah I figured they were all proto-fascist, or whatever I thought that was at the time.

But that 15 year old could think they were something that was off kilter and years later learn a term that he can retrospectively apply because it totally fits what he wasn't able to fully articulate as a teen.

I had to google it.

I was in ROTC in High School, and I'm about as far from fascist as they come.

Mind you I believe marching band is a paramilitary organization.

What a coincidence, some people in the military think military bands are paramilitary too.

I like marching bands. Does that make me bad.

Only if you try to sing to the music.

In college, the marching band's storage room was directly beneath my dorm window.

On football days, they were my unwelcome weekend alarm clock.

Thunderboy's marching band leader is definitely a dictator. Or something beginning with dic....

He's definitely compensating for something, and wears a school varsity jacket even though he did not attend the school.

I had (have actually) a wicked smart friend whose hippie parents kept him and by extension me up to speed on The Man and his underlings... I was overly-aware.

No contest. Marching band is way more of a paramilitary organization than Boy Scouts is. At least in my experience with my kids.