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Via evolving parenthood experience, it's recently come to my attention that the Boy Scouts no longer exist, but rather a co-ed institution called "Scouting America". Boys and girls welcomed equally. No scout troop for males only.
Girl Scouts? Same as it ever was. Girls only.
How is this not a layup discrimination lawsuit? I can't even find any online discourse about it; any attempt to Google the topic simply directs me to the scouts "anti-discrimination" efforts.
edit: I was tragically unaware that Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are two independent organizations. The naming structure led me to assume that they operated under a common parent organization, and we all know what happens when you assume...
When stuff like this happens, I think back to my time in the boy scouts 30 years ago. Or rather, cub scouts. Our den leader was a woman, and women weren't allowed to lead boy scouts (age 12 up), and the couldn't find a guy to do it, so the whole thing just disbanded once i hit age 12.
It was basically an after school activity. We sang songs, ate snacks, and made crappy home ornaments with glue and paper mache. No woodworking, no camping, definitely no knives or guns. It was very much not a macho activity. I feel like making it coed would have been... completely fine and natural actually?
There's probably a place for a more "hardcore" scouting that's boys only, but that was not my experience with the group.
I still think there was value, even at young ages to having male only places. You do need at least some single gender socialization so that young men and young women learn how to navigate their future roles in civilization and how to deal with their unique problems. Males need to see good modeling of channeling the extra energy that they naturally possess. Little boys are bundles of energy who need to learn how to channel it. Little girls have less energy but are much more naturally attuned to being catty and manipulative in social interactions and need to be taught to control those natural tendencies. You can’t do those things in a mixed gender environment because the problems are different and what would be good if a boy did it might not be for girls, or vice versa depending on the behavior.
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