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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wish there was somewhere that boys could just be boys.

270 replies

Teapotqueen · 13/10/2011 21:15

My DS is just starting Beavers (a younger version of cubs) and it has dawned on me that today there is nowhere where a boy can just be a boy without having girls around to think about. Rainbows, Brownies and Guides are girls only. Everything else is mixed sexes, football, scouts, all school clubs. Why is it wrong in the modern world for boys to be with just boys. Just a thought.

OP posts:
CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 13/10/2011 21:46

But it doesn't have to be complicated when girls are around. I did biology A level. There were 14 boys in my class and 2 girls. There were no 'communication issues and subtleties of female and cross-gender interactions'. We were all just students, working towards our qualification.

You have a really sexist attitude :(

BorderBinLiner · 13/10/2011 21:47

Can you not just be mates with someone a different gender?

TheFallenMadonna · 13/10/2011 21:47

Well, in that case you should probably start something for boys alone then. Because the people who run this organisation have decided that they want something different. When you run the organisation, you get to choose.

DH learned to sew in scouts. He sewed a hovercraft skirt.

Nevertooearlyforcake · 13/10/2011 21:47

Downby, can't your son just go off and do something with some male friends

Original poster
Teapotqueen · 13/10/2011 21:49

Miggsie, Boys and girls are of the same species but they have different hormones going through their systems and their brains are physicaly different and wired differently. The point I am trying to get at is Why can't boys have spaces fpr themselves. Same answer to belleEnd (good name by the way)

OP posts:
upahill · 13/10/2011 21:49

On the flip side of what my son was saying I also know that girls dind young boys annoying to with their imaginative games and manicness!!

I think mixed groups are great but it is also nice to have some single sex sessions as well.
Lets face it even adults like same sex sessions such as swimming. Our local authority provides men only and women only sessions in cycling, walking and swimming and has done so for years. There must be a demand for them otherwise they would have stopped.

Local youth clubs have girls night , boys night and everyone nights.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 13/10/2011 21:49

Luca - My knowledge (such as it is) of girls joining Scouting comes from other MN threads, where it's often been discussed (and usually in the context of why Guiding remains for girls only while Scouting is mixed). I know there have been women volunteers in Scouting for decades - my brother's Akela was a redoubtable woman - but, as I heard it, going mixed brought in a new wave of volunteers which the organisation badly needed.

Upahill - I would bet that the women who volunteer are the mothers of sons or daughters in much the same ratio as there are boys and girls in each group. I doubt that mothers of sons are any more or less likely to volunteer than mothers of daughters.

I agree, up to a point, that it's a shame that there aren't boy-only organisations but as someone else has said, there's always the City, the upper echelons of the law, the judiciary, medicine, FTSE 100 companies ...

MillyR · 13/10/2011 21:50

Riverside, I think Explorer scouts replaced venture scouts, which had both guides and scout leaders feeding into it. But somebody else might know if this was always the case. It was certainly both genders when I was young.

fruitybread · 13/10/2011 21:50

Have I got this right?

There are people on this thread who think it is okay for there to be 'girls only' groups or activities - but don't think that 'boys only' groups are okay?

Why?

watfordmummy · 13/10/2011 21:50

Yes you can be friend, and yes you can work, school lots of things with the other gender BUT I still think that it does no harm to have a small amount, and beavers, cubs etc can only be what 2 hours a week with a just your own sex.

Not sexist just a different point of view Wink

TimeWasting · 13/10/2011 21:51

watford, they're not as different as you think, and if they are it's mainly nurture, not natural.
Boys like cooking and girls like climbing trees. Apart from when society indoctrinates them against their personal preferences, or only lets the girls wear expensive Lelli Kelly's which they mustn't mess up because they're good girls.

DownbytheRiverside · 13/10/2011 21:51

I'm sexist?
I'm not the poster assuming that the issues in mixed groups are related to sexual attraction, suggesting that boys could bond in the toilets, advocating that it is OK for girls to have groups that exclude boys.
But of course you are free to make whatever judgements you like.

fruitybread · 13/10/2011 21:52

And - speaking as a feminist - are we really saying that small boys can't have 'boys only' activities because of the male dominated 'City, the upper echelons of the law, the judiciary, medicine, FTSE 100 companies ...'?

MillyR · 13/10/2011 21:53

Boys Brigade has a 15-18 year old section.

DownbytheRiverside · 13/10/2011 21:54

'Downby, can't your son just go off and do something with some male friends'

He likes the structure of an organised activity where verbal communication is at a minimum.

TimeWasting · 13/10/2011 21:56

One feminist perspective on this would be that women only spaces need to be protected because we still live in a patriarchal society and allowing males into female only spaces would result in males being in charge of the female space.

I actually don't see the point in the Guides if Scouts are mixed sex now.

watfordmummy · 13/10/2011 21:59

Timewasting - I think from what I have read it is as much nature not nuture.

TimeWasting · 13/10/2011 21:59

Which bits?

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 13/10/2011 22:00

No, I'm not, fruitybread. I'm saying - as a feminist - that I see a need for girl-only spaces where girls can gain confidence precisely because it is still a male-dominated world and anything that empowers girls is a good thing. Of course, many girls will want to get their empowerment in a mixed environment and that's fine by me too.

I'm very happy for there to be boy-only spaces, but I don't think anyone should berate Scouting for taking a pragmatic decision (at least a decade ago, I think) to boost their numbers of members and volunteers.

DownbytheRiverside · 13/10/2011 22:00

Surely that can't be true, especially with young girls.
We've just had a whole speil about how adding girls into a group of boys shouldn't affect the group, so how can the reverse have a different outcome?
Being as there is no difference between the two genders.

ComeIntoTheGardenMaud · 13/10/2011 22:02

One feminist perspective on this would be that women only spaces need to be protected because we still live in a patriarchal society.

Yes, that was what I was trying to say.

TimeWasting · 13/10/2011 22:02

There is a difference in how those genders behave in this society though DBTR.

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 13/10/2011 22:02

I said that your statement was sexist. You said that there would be subtexts and flouncing going on if girls are around. That is a sexist thing to say because it ascribes a load of negative characteristics to people purely on the basis they are female.

I disagree with you and tbh the ratio of girls to boys in Beavers around here is about 3:10 so I really don't think the boys are in danger of being ganged up on.

MillyR · 13/10/2011 22:02

I don't think feminism is standing in the way of people organising boy only activities, if that is what people want to do.

exoticfruits · 13/10/2011 22:03

There are people on this thread who think it is okay for there to be 'girls only' groups or activities - but don't think that 'boys only' groups are okay?

Why?

It is the old double standards and people won't allow there to be differences. Girls can have special things-boys can't.
I don't mind Scouts having girls if Guides had to have boys. I then get told that it has to be girls only because some cultures wouldn't let girls go if there were boys (this doesn't work the other way around!) I think that people should embrace the culture of the country they are living in.

I don't like double standards.