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

[Teapotqueen]

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.

I should have read the thread, shouldn't I?
Got it now, the toadstool thing is a joke.

I would guess that the reason that brownies don't have boys is because their stance has not been challenged much. Cubs/scouts (the adults in charge) didn't WANT to be mixed, but it was challenged, again and again. If as many boys wanted to join brownies, as the cubs have had girls wanting to join. both would be mixed.

IMO its the brownies etc that miss out, not the scouts

boys can be boys at the scouts, chances are the girls who choose scouts over guides (like me) are more boyish than the boys and about as un-princessy as you can get and would be first up the trees/on the rafts/etc so not at all holding the boys back. The only think holding them back is that they cant choose between guides and scouts

Fruitybread- I didn't say I did, did I? If I did, I didn't mean to.I did say that there are girls who would not be allowed to join Guides if it was mixed gender. That is obviously wrong. However, that is the situation we are living with.

"There is an agreement in primary eductaion that the curriculum has been recently geared towards girls because the (predominantly female) practitioners have subconciously planned it in a way that appealed to them."

What is that agreement based on? Some bloody hard evidence I hope.

"Nothing to do with scouts being more adventurous. It is perhaps because there is a perception that boys and their acticvities are more adventurous and daring and bold and fun and girls' activities are wet."

Hmm. Is it just perception of this type?

Scout / Cub activities this term:

• Writing and performing own song to AGM
• Shooting and editing own film far AGM
• Camping
• Camping again, with canoeing and dragon boating.
• Camp cooking
• First aid
• Night hike (6 miles for Cubs, 10 miles for Scouts) and sleepover
• Visit to Police station
• Scare your socks off for Halloween

Brownie / Guide activities this term:

• Pizza and film night
• Craft activities for halloween
• Planning night
• Planning night
• Person coming in with dog to talk about it

I really don't think that it's gender biased perception that the Scout / Cub activities ARE more fun and more adventurous??

techer, I agree that people are first and foremost individuals.

Depends again on the groups run in you rown area then, teacher

NO no no no back in the 1980's when I was a Brownie, the toadstool used to be gotten out every week, and at the end of the night the dancing round the toadstool used to begin and of course on promise night too.

Scouts accepted girls because there was an equal opportunities court case that they couldn't afford to fight.
My son's cubs and scouts became roughly 50/50 girls and boys. This means there are fewer places available for boys AND the meetings have changed in tone. The activities are the same, but the girls tend to hang round in groups giggling, and arrive in unsuitable shoes etc, and worry about their hair. The boys charge round being noisy. Yes, that's a sexist generalisation, but it was good for my son to have a structured boys only environment. Scouts should be for boys only. Guides offers the same opportunities for girls; guides is only less adventurous if the leaders are less adventurous

teacher that is interesting
IMO there is NOTHING wrong with them being very different, but just like some girls liking the guides more than the more active scouts, some boys also prefer gentler activites so its a shame they don't get the same choice.

dont think they should be the same - that would be pointless and actually a shame

It seems to me that the only example people have shown on here of boys having to mix with girls but girls being able to be on their own is Scouts/Guides.

Nobody forced the Scout Association to go mixed. They did it themselves. If you don't like it being mixed, send your boys to football, cricket, rugby, hockey, Boys Brigade. Set up your own groups for boys only if you really can't find anything that suits and you care that much.

There are plenty of opportunities for boys to just be with boys and if you haven't found them then you aren't looking very hard.

Pointy,

Perhaps. But also, with the more adventurous girls finding their way into Scouting, Guiding does seem to have withdrawn into a slightly twee enclave of girliness and girls who like girliness.

I've just domne the same thing teacher, matched the activities offered by our local guide and ranger troops against scouts and explorers.
It's a similar contrast, lots of safe and collaborative activities for the girls more active and thrilling choices for the scouts.
Wonder why?

"Nobody forced the Scout Association to go mixed."

wrong. There was a hell of a lot of resisitance to it. Nobody has forced brownies to go mixed, Yet.

Inherent sexism?

Sexism on whose behalf?

Grumple,

The thing that I find interesting, looking at the timetables, is that there is plenty of material for the gentler members of Scouting to get involved in - knots, cooking, film-making, song writing / performing / prop making - AS WELL AS the outdoorsy stuff.

I think what this thread is saying is that there are in fact many environments in which noisy, rough and tumble, energetic boys can find plenty of space to be boys - what is actually lacking is an environment for the gentler and artier boys to persue those activities in a boys-only environment - and i am not sure whether a boys-only environment for such activities is necessary?

Erm, many units may have protested but the upper echelons of the Scout Association made the decision themselves... It's not like a law was drafted which said all boys only groups have to go mixed - how could the Boys Brigade still be boys only if that were the case? So yes it is true that nobody forced the Association as a whole to go mixed (even if the Association did indeed force individual units to mix against their will)

'send your boys to football, cricket, rugby, hockey, Boys Brigade. Set up your own groups for boys only if you really can't find anything that suits and you care that much.'

Why can't we just have scouts with a choice of activities that suit our children? All I'd like is equality of opportunity with the guides.

There's also an issue about resources and facilities. In my observation, Scout units are far more likely than Guide units to have their own hut/hall with its own open space (rather than use of a church/community hall) and their own tents/canoes/other equipment for outdoor activities. All of those things may make it easier for Scouting groups to do adventurous stuff, irrespective of the leaders' attitude.

Our annual boating day is probably the best thing we do all year.

why on earth do people think guides are feeble just because they're all girls?

When I was a Guide (only left 10 years ago so it can't have changed that much) there were few discernable differences between us and the scouts.

We made campfires from scratch and cooked on them, went hiking, orienteering and tracking in the woods, learned how to tie a variety of knots, played wide games and hideously violent team games, did badges that involved electrics and carpentry and generally created a lot of noise, mess and chaos.

Guide camps are some of my favourite memories - putting up huge old fashioned bell tents and having to loosen the guy ropes in the middle of the night if it rained, making washing up stands and bedding roll racks from sticks and string, going for days without showering and washing our hair in a bucket of cold water in a field, waking up friends in the middle of the night to accompany us to the toilet tent in the woods, walking for miles with only a compass to get us back to camp. Etc.

Cooking and sewing??? Nope, not that I remember! Unless you count the odd peppermint cream making session.

We did crafts and stuff. But so do the scouts. I used to go with my Dad on his scout craft fair day because it was so much fun. I'm fairly sure all the boys loved it.

Guides was an amazing organisation and I think it's a great shame that it's being potentially killed by scouts taking girls.

Pointy,

If I read you right, you are saying that Guiding offers a very restricted range of activites, in contrast to Scouting, because of sexism. Whose sexism? Must be the leaders, I presume, because there is nothing to stop those leaders planning the same mix of quiet and active activities as Scouting offers, they just choose not to...

my mum was one of the earlier leaders of a mixed group, there was a LOT of resistance. The scout association didn't just sit around the table and say "oh wouldn't it be nice if we went mixed? why yes what a lovely idea!" nope! their stance was challenged by many individual parents because their girls wanted to join. It was easier to say a general yes than to keep fighting the little battles going on all over the country. Guides have not had that from the ground up so their core is not likely to change their mind any time soon

Manic, I don't think that it's scouts taking girls. If Guiding still offered all the things that you enjoyed, in every town and city and village, girls would still go there rather than scouts / cubs.

DD had a choice - she was offered a place in both Cubs and Brownies. For her, there was no contest, because what is being offered by Brownies in so many localities now is NOTHING like what you have described - and i do think that is down to the choice of activity by local leaders.

I do think that both adults and children often choose to have social time in single sex groups. But what if they don't happen to wnat to do that between certain hours on a Thursday night, wearing a cub uniform?

DS has 'boy time' - I / we invite his friends round and they shut themselves in his room and talk / play or go to the park, then have tea. (They don't seem to mind my presence during the production of the tea.)

Only a small minority of boys are scouts anyway, so it can't have the greatest potential for male-only leisure time!