ryuutora replied to your post: Quick question time: Why should girls join your...
As a Girl Guide leader in Canada I can acknowledge that it’s perfectly fine for girls to join Scouts, but we also need to bear in mind the impact of socialization on behaviour in group settings. Even as an adult, I feel like if there were men at camp with us I would feel less inclined to just get gross and muddy and have fun and worry about appearances more. And while I am WELL AWARE that this line of thinking is conditioned and I should resist the urge to remain (½)
–“appealing” to the opposite sex just because that was what was drilled into my brain growing up, I also recognize how much easier it is to just let loose and be myself when there isn’t pressure from a group that is “other” in a space meant for me. I think the girls in my group have an easier time expressing themselves in a comfortable zone where they are surrounded by other girls, and that especially as they get older and the social pressures of (2/3 i guess oops)
–relationships and the expectation that they would be looking at boys with ‘romantic interest’ by, say, Pathfinders, makes me worry that their experience in the program would be inhibited if the very group that they were being CONSTANTLY conditioned to impress and appeal to were to intrude on their safe space. TL;DR girls are likely to be more afraid of getting dirty, trying new things, and being goofy/fun/THEMSELVES when boys are thrown into the picture (3/3)
Maybe if you’d be brought up around boys, doing exactly the same things and treated the same, you wouldn’t have worried about appearances as much? Obviously that’s just a theory, and without time travel and alternate universes it’s impossible to prove. I just know that none of my girls have ever worried about getting dirty on camp. We’ve had a few that have brought make up to camp and put it on every morning, but they were the sort of girls that would have done that anyway, no matter where the were.
As for romantic things. That right there is called heteronormativity: the idea that straight is the default, and that girls and boys SHOULD show romantic interest in each other. Admittedly, I did meet my ex in scouting, but it was through that relationship that I realised I wasn’t straight. In fact, i’m gay, and was only going out with him because I knew he liked me, and thought that I was supposed to like him back. My little Asexual Lesbian ass didn’t realise that what I was feeling was not romantic love (also why kids should be taught at a young age that straight is NOT the default and it’s possible to not be attracted to anyone.)
meggie-mags replied to your post: Quick question time: Why should girls join your...
Personally as a Girl Guide in Canada I don’t think that the two should mix. Girls need a Girl space and boys need a boy space. It’s nothing sexist it’s just how kids grow and learn different. Both programs offer equal opportunity these days (i.e. girl guides isn’t just about sewing and cooking and scouts isn’t just about hunting) but I don’t think they should be as “competing” in nature as it has been. I think both organizations need to work together better.
Interesting that both people with the view that girls and boys shouldn’t mix are from the same organisation.
I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but in the UK Guiding and Scouting are still quite different. Guides don’t go camping anywhere near as often as Scouts, and if they do go away (on a ‘holiday’ as they call it, rather than a camp) it’s almost always in a building. Guide leaders tend to be older women, who WERE brought up thinking of themselves as different to boys, and as a result Guiding tends to be more traditionally feminine. When I was a Brownie we certainly didn’t do knots or build dens in the woods.
You are right that Scouts and Guides need to improve on working together though. Maybe both organisations would benefit.
