To be Peeved off at Brownies

I was a Cub when I was younger (not enough girls at our school for a brownie pack) and it was ace! I got lots of experience of bossing small boys around as I was a sixer - which has stood me in great stead in life

I then went to gg when i was older - i HATED it - it was boring and lots of gender sterotyped stuff like making tea and sewing...wished i could go join the scouts instead. At the time I got all sorts of sarky comments from the gg about why i had been in cubs as at the time it was a mainly boys thingf.....left in the end

I would go for cubs......they sound much more reasonable apart from anything.

We thought about GB for our girls, and we thought the uniform was nicer - but I think they're changing it anyway, aren't they?

We decided we weren't happy with some of the influences there, anymore than at Rainbows, so that was that.

Must admit that there was disapproval amongst my GB friends when one girl went to Brownies as well (it's not the done thing). But then the area this church met in really is like Royston Vassey . Local things for local people. Still is, come to that - hence my sending my dd to Rainbows/Brownies. Oh and the other reason was a sudden conviction of one of the church members for being a paed .

What a cheek! So, whats that bit in the Brownie promise about loving & honouring your God then!

Ooh, I had this as well as a kid on Rememberance Sunday. I was a flag carrier for the Brownies. When I went Girls Brigade next week I was told off for them being second choice. They said that as GB was a church group, they were more impt than Brownies. My mum made me leave (quite right too!!)

Should definitely be local clubs for local people.

I'm good with the old-fashioned way of doing things single-sex. But then, we decided to say no to doing Rainbows anyway.

And I don't think they were unreasonable with the uniform, either, really, but that's already been said. Maybe her hair was messy?

getting a bit royston vasey now

Sports and specific activty clubs (art etc) should be open to all.

Strange uniformed bits-and-bobs clubs set up in strange bygone days should stay boys or girls.

They'll be letting men join the WI next and here will that leave us - where will we hide when we're retired and have to spend all day with the old man?

It's a slipperly slope mixing these clubs. Keep 'em separate I say.

And I don't think you should have mixed the uniforms but it's not really a big deal either.

My dd is in Beavers and as a tomboy really loves it. There are plenty of girls and she mixes with both depending on what they are doing.

I would hate to think, in this day and age,that she could not join purely becasue she is a girl, or that ds could not join Brownies (if he wanted, which is very unlikely )

I think they should welcome anyone who can benefit from the group dynamic

Cubs is boys and Brownies is girls. S'not as if there aren't loads of mised-sex groups if that's what's going to float your boat

I love you woodcraft fellas. You make my heart skip a beat with your alternative ways

Should cubs and scouts be all-boy? Wellllll....
My very timid son has finally joined Scouts, now that a new local group has started that takes girls (the other established groups didn't). His friends are all girls. He relies on them, and finds an all-boy environment terrifying. He'd have joined Brownies four years ago if they'd agreed to take him!

There isn't anything else around that he'd cope with (no Woodcraft Folk or SmallPerson's Brigade)-- not everywhere has lots of options.

Daughter, on the other hand, regards boys as some sort of alien species. Brownies for her, I think!

The official name of Guiding changed from The Girl Guides to just Guides a while back as part of a move to go towards being mixed but it just didn't happen and they changed their name to GirlGuiding.

I'm probably a bit of a Luddite - I actually liked the idea of all-female or all-male colleges in Universities (not that I went to those sort of unis). Where children go to a mixed-sex school, I think it's good for them to go to a single-sex organisation to get a bit of a break as it were from the other sex. There are boys at her football class, swimming class and even some in her ballet/tap classes not to mention school. Rainbows is a very small part of my dd's life so for her to have an hour a week with just females for company seems a good idea to me. I think for boys, the opposite probably applies to them.

I help at a Brownie pack and several of our girls are in scouting too. It never been a problem for us. The children have to choose who to stand with at church parades but as guiders we respect their choice (although they usually choose us )

Sounds very odd to me that any guider wouldnt encourage children in whatever they do. perhaps i'm too nice.......nah can't be that

Basically, we don't want boys in our gang! Every year, the question is asked at the AGM, shall we invite boys to join and every year the answer is NO! In any case, they are only Brownies until they are 10 or maybe 11 if there's enough space, then they can go on to join the boys in Scouting if they wish.

My dd is going to an all girls school in September, which is why I encouraged her towards Scouts so that she can mix with boys in a "getting on with rigging the dinghy" sort of way rather than a "hanging around the bus stop" sort of way. A forlorn hope perhaps!

I'll quote you this Rosa, from a post further down this very thread;

"A bit like the research that suggests mixed-gender schools are good for boys (as the presence of girls tend to calm down the whole environment) but single-gender schools are best for girls as they don't get pushed out by the boys."

And the girl guide website has a whole lot of eulogizing about how beneficial a single-sex environment is for girls.

CLM I don't know why Brownies don't admit boys, though I shouldn' object if they did. Have you got proof that it is because girls 'do well' in a single sex environment or is that just your assumption? FWIW I should imagine that any boy who did join Brownies would be one who did want to be in a more girlish atmosphere - the girls who join Cubs do so because they want to be more like boys, not because they want to make boys more like them. So I don't see where your argument is leading.

I agree CLM.

If a group is mixed, it's mixed, that's fine. Just don't see the bloody point of trying to enforce mixed gender on single sex groups, and don't see why boys are the ones who have to compromise in their same-gender groups, and girls don't because they 'do well' in a single sex environment.

Everyone has to conform to fitting in with what's best for girls, and boys are only acceptable if they are a bit more like girls. maybe boys are supposed to be boisterous and enjoy the company of other boys.

I really depends on unit to unit what Brownies and Guides do tbh. If you get a girlie kind of leader, then thats what they'll do. My dd is a Guide and they do climbing and canoeing and all the things that the neighbouring Scout unit do. They also have a massive annual camp, where they camp with the Scouts.