Wow, this has to be the worst idea the Boy Scouts of America has ever had.
Hello, catholiccontriversy here and when I heard the news that the Boy Scouts are allowing girls to join really shook me. I'm an eagle scout. I joined scouting at age 5 as a tiger cub and remained active all the way until I turned 18 and was no longer allowed to be a scout. Scouting was a major part of my life, and it helped make me the man I am today. After hearing the news, I wanted to make a post immediately, but I had to really ask myself why I was so angry at hearing this news. Now after a month and a half, I've figured out how to put it into words.
First though, I need to talk about why scouting was such a great experience. Every Tuesday (that's when we had our meetings), I would meet up with a group of boys ages 10 to 18, and we would do various activities that made us better; be that survivalists, cooks, financial experts, citizens, or friends. Then once a month, we would go camping and spend a weekend together cooking our own food, sleeping outside, building fires for warmth, and having fun. Then for 1 week in the summer, we would go to summer camp and through a week of being stuck with each other, we would form a brotherhood while earning merit badges, firing weapons, hiking, and singing goofy camp songs. As I look back, what made scouting truly beautiful was how boys from a wide age range could come together as friends and just having fun being boys. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a 10 year old hanging out with a 15 year old not because they were related or the 15 year old was the babysitter, but because they were friends with common interests? You might never see that, but I saw it every week. When was the last time you saw a 16 year old say "hey guys, lets climb a tree and build a fort?" That was probably "too juvenile" or "not cool" for most 16 year olds you know, but I'd see it once a month, and some times I was the one saying it. That's what made scouting great, boys being able to just be boys without fear of judgement by peers, and that's ruined the moment girls enter the situation.
What made scouting work is that you would have the younger boys looking at the older boys for social proof that "it's OK to let loose," and by the time you were 16 or 17, you've been in scouting so long you just don't care anymore that what you're doing isn't "cool." We sing really campy camp songs. We would go to playgrounds for summer family picknick events. We would make up our own games while on camping trips. For a 10 year old, it's a little intimidating to be surrounded by all these older boys in middle school, but here they are, singing the same songs and paying the same made-up games with you, so it must be OK. You're 12 or 13, kind of insecure and worried about what people will think of you; but, here are these high school kids sing the same songs and playing the same made-up games as you, so it must be OK. Then when you're a sophomore or junior in high school and you're doing these super embarrassing, childish things; but who cares, the young kids aren't your peers, and the other older boys are your brothers, it's not like you're at school around the popular kids. That's what made scouting great, that unspoken social contract of "I'm not at school, I'm just with some guys that want to have fun without worrying about the social stigma." That goes away the moment you introduce girls, and I have examples to back that up.
At summer camp about half of the merit badge counselors were women, most early to mid 20s I'd estimate. Not all of them were "prom queens" (mostly the opposite), but women none the less. The dynamic of the merit badge classes was very different depending on if a woman or man was teaching it. If a man was teaching it, the class was the kind of care free environment I described previously. Everyone was there to learn and generally well behaved because they wanted to be there, but you'd joke around with the counselor, say some weird things, pride yourself on your bodily functions like belching, and other "boys will be boys" kind of fun. If the class was taught by a woman however, the dynamic changed. Everyone subconsciously wanted to impress her, be a big shot and master whatever the class was about, "because if she's teaching it she must find it useful" or whatever our pubescent animal brains thought. No one was ever actively trying to court the counselor because she was older and we had no shot, but there was still that primal urge to "wooh" that wasn't present with the men counselors.
Then there was also a time when we were on a campout and some civil war reenactors were on the same campground as us, and one of them brought their 11 or so year old daughter with them (no big deal, free country and what not). For about the first half of the Saturday, it was just us, having fun, playing games, making fires, and boys being boys. Well, about halfway through the day she decided to join us in our fun, and while we still had our fun, the dynamic immediately changed. None of us were even floating the idea of a relationship (we were only going to see each other this weekend, and no one had delusions of keeping in touch), but she was still a girl, and we were boys, and I remember many casual conversations trying to be "yeah, I once fought a bear with my bare hands, I'm kind of a tough guy" among the troop. Granted, it was kind of fun, but not at the level I had when it was just my friends and I.
While the fun was still there, it wasn't nearly at the level of only boys, and those were short encounters with girls we knew for a week or less. Now, imagine similar age girls being there on a regular basis, going to the same meetings and events as the boys. Who's going to sing "Alice where are you going" when their crush is present? Who's going to say "lets build a fort and pretend to being warring nations" when a cute girl is standing right next to them? No one. The beauty of Boy Scouts is that it was a safe space for boys to just be boys, away from girls. For 1 hour a week, 1 weekend a month, and 1 week a year, a group of boys was able to forget about the teen and pre-teen social world and just have fun. That's gone when you bring girls, the driving force of the teen and pre-teen social world, into that safe space. This has been catholiccontriversy, signing off, and may God bless you.
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