Scouting as girls

Let's talk scouting for a moment.

BSA has announced plans to allow girls to join the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America. I won't lie, I was very intrigued at the thought, at first. I love the thought of girls having the option to do whatever the boys get to do. Girls have long been begging for a "real" scouting opportunity to be open to them, my own girls included. Boo and Bear love the idea of being in a group with the same activities the boys have always been able to do in scouts.

Well that, of course, was before I learned that BSA already has four, yep, FOUR, different co-ed groups. And, to add insult to injury, they aren't allowing girls to join BSA so much as making a new parallel program for girls. If that is the case, why not let the boys keep their safe space and have their scouting? Why not partner with GSUSA? Or with AHG? They could have partnered with one of these amazing girl-centered groups and built an additional program of some kind with the help of programs that really are all about building incredible and strong young women. 

I am leaning to believing that this was actually done for purely financial reasons. That would really break my heart. Our girls are not a means of upping enrollment. When only a very small portion of boys are joining BSA, the focus should be on opening up and changing for the enrollment of the boys they are not catching the attention of. Unfortunately the set-up for this new "coed" BSA seems a little off to me...see, BSA is good enough for girls to join. In fact, they are showing that they are the right choice for girls because girls can and should be able to do what boys do. The down side? They are not integrating the troops, so girls can join, but no all the way. It is a little stifling. BSA is good enough for the girls, but the girls aren't quite goo enough for BSA.

In the spirit of showing AHG and GSUSA they are every bit as good as BSA, I am going to do a small series of posts linking the BSA merit badges to the corresponding AHG and GSUSA patches. I will use this time to link and show girls which patches they can use to get what the BSA offers...I will even include possible ideas and directions for fun patches. In some cases local councils even have their own patches and requirements, I will include links to those for you.

Happy scouting...