to think that Rainbows and Brownies should be scrapped...

[Bardette]

...and all kids can just go to Beavers and Cubs.
In our area there is a long waiting list for Beavers. My son would like to join a colony but we have been told there it will be at least a term until a space will be available.
Girls can go to Rainbows or Beavers, but boys can only go to Beavers. As girls take up half the spaces in Beavers and all the spaces in Rainbows that means three times the number of places available to girls in local clubs.
Surely it would make more sense and be fairer to have two Beaver colonies?

hey

My dd is 14 and is a young leader at my brownies now. She was a pack leader before that but she has always gone to her own section unit in a different district.

Ds is 11, either stays at home, goes bowling with his dad or granny will have him for the 2 hours I am out.

Seven many on MN think that men only spaces should be banned, what's the difference?

Do they? I haven't seen that, Bardette.

You find me an example of boys being forbidden to go to an activity because there was a possibility girls might be there, and I'll reconsider my position on girls only spaces.

I have read the thread bardette. It's such a usual run of the mill one on here with such a boringly common viewpoint, that your use of hyperbole was ignored.

Hence the woodcraft folk trolls

It's traditional for a scouts/ guides thread to run on gender/ religious lines (keep an eye out for the Remembrance Day threads about scouts and guides - they are always good) and for the woodcraft folk to recruit as the thinking (wo)man's alternative.

Hyperbole, indeed.

There was a thread with someone complaining about a "mothers group" a little while ago, that it excluded men. A lot of posters said that their churches / localities offered groups for men, and they wouldn't want that stopped.

There are many situations where it is appropriate to have single sex admission.

Or are you talking about females being excluded from positions of power and wealth worldwide? People get a bit het up about that, yes.

So for example, in some areas only boys receive an education. The boys have a "club" that many think the girls should be allowed to "join".

That's quite different from wanting to alter an entire organisation because another organisation changed it's rules 20 years ago and that has caused a mild inconvenience for one of your children

That's great, retropear, that your DD feels she is able to manage everything with boys around. Not all girls have that experience (see the Girls' Attitudes surveys linked to above) and that translates to fewer female voices in so many different areas:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19603399

An analysis of data from the national pupil database showed that 49% of state co-educational schools in England did not send any girls to study physics at A-level in 2011.

Girls were two-and-a-half times more likely to go on to study A-level physics if they came from a girls' school. The same is not true of other science subjects, suggesting that physics is uniquely stereotyped in many mixed schools as a boys' subject.

www.wes.org.uk/statistics

Only 6% of the engineering workforce in the UK is female.

www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/26789/women-worldwide-know-less-about-politics-than-men.aspx

Women worldwide know less about politics than men.

News coverage is heavily weighted toward male sources even in countries such as the UK and Australia where gender equality ratings are relatively high. Overall, women are only interviewed or cited in 30 per cent of TV news stories in the ten nations.

In all ten countries, female sources tend only to appear in longer news items or articles and are preferred for soft news topics such as family, lifestyle and culture.

At a term being a long wait, I had to put DD1 down for Rainbows just before her third birthday!! I've been advised to be putting DD2 down at Christmas, she's not 3 till March!
YABU. It's not fashionable to say but boys and girls can thrive in single sex environments. My DD does a mixed sport and goes to Brownies. The coaches are excellent at the sport coaching sessions but she is one of only 4 girls in the group and not as loud as the boys tend to get. (Think 5 adults herding 20 cats...)
At Brownies she is one of a group of girls with the same goal and interests. Her six has become a group of good friends and she has blossomed. Their pack is one of 3 in our area and does tend to be a more craft based and slightly quieter group than the other 2 in general. She loves It. I would be in favour of cubs/scouts becoming single sex again but ban girl guiding? Daft idea.

Bardette, if you honestly believe that men/ boys are being discriminated against, like, anywhere in the known world, do please share.

As hakluyt said, give us some meaningful examples of where boys are genuinely hard done by? Examples of where boys might be unable to go because there might be girls present?

As opposed to, you know, girls being stoned to death for being raped, or being unable to attend scouts because of the co-ed nature, who have managed to find a niche in guiding that you want to shatter? (Or apparently don't, you were just using hyperbole to complain about this terrible discrimination against boys)

On a worldwide scale?

Even one sensible discrimination against men/ boys would be lovely?

And not 'I have to wait a month because they let girls into scouting' ...

OP, MN hates boys, fact. There's currently a thread about a man who wants to introduce his month old daughter to his family, he been pretty much told that he's a twat for suggesting such a thing. See also MILs and comments regarding husbands families in general.

YANBU, it's unfair and if it was the other way around MN would start a campaign.

That would be because guides and scouts exclude on gender/religious lines, madwoman (helpfully now one excludes on gender lines and one on religious lines, so it's easier to remember). It's kind of natural that that would come up when discussing them.

How is it "hating boys" to not agree that shutting down an entire global organisation is an appropriate response to one child having to have a bit of a wait to go to an after school club

Nonsense, lucille. You do realise that a huge number of Brownie/Guide etc leaders actually have boys and still believe in a girl only space!

(To be fair, my DS at the age of almost 3 came from dropping me off at a Brownie holiday sobbing that he wanted to be a Brownie and didn't want to go home with his dad!)

Lucille what utter bollocks. MN does not hate boys at all. Many of us have them and adore them
I have a much loved boy and he does a sport which by chance is all boys. He also thrives there. What is wrong with giving both boys and girls the chance to blossom in a single sex environment? Would you really take away girl guiding just because there's a waiting list of 6 weeks or so for one boy?
What would that achieve exactly?

Where is that thread, LucilleBluth?

Exactly, tortoise. It's repetitive, non?

I was suggesting that the op's claim that she didn't really believe such a thing was slightly disingenuous, when, um, it's the topic of debate every time.

Just commenting on the op's claim of hyperbole as a Defence, rather than pointing out any illogicality....

Sorry two wrongs don't make a right,discriminating against young boys because of the woes against womankind is wrong pure and simple.

And frankly if as a society we argue against men only gentleman and golf clubs there is no way anybody can argue that it us ok for girls only Brownies.it's ludicrous and sends a very negative message.Really don't see how they can get away with it for much longer.

If anybody was to set up a boys only club for little boys where girls were excluded because of their genitals the uproar would be huge.

Lucille. I have a beautiful son, and much loved dh.
Don't let that get in the way of your sweeping generalizations, though, eh?
I am still a guide leader and believe in female only spaces. And have been a co-ed cub leader.

These things are never black and white, even if you are unable to see the nuances involved, please don't assume no one else has that capacity.

I'm going to ignore that utterly idiotic post from Lucille.

OP - are you certain that girls take up 'half the spaces' in your Beavers colony? Because in DS's (which as I said, is so popular you have to put your name down before you turn 4 to be guaranteed a place when you turn 6!), there are maybe 3 or 4 girls, out of 30 kids. So nowhere near half.

I think there's very little understanding of young boys in society today, as a culture we have had a massive shift and anything deemed masculine is frowned upon. Primary education is especially female focused and boys get short changed.

It's something I'm seeing more and more.

Oh gosh, I've just noticed after Idontsee's post that the OP describes a term's wait to start Beavers as a "long waiting list".

I would describe my waiting list for Brownies as a long waiting list as I am currently telling parents that I might be able to offer their daughter a place in September 2015 if they are very lucky!

DD3 joined a beaver colony. Her brother was a cub. About two terms later the leaders decided to give up. I ended up volunteering as a section assistant to stop the colony from closing. She has now swum up to cubs. DD4 is now in beavers.

I didn't want to volunteer particularly but couldn't really sit back and let other people do s what I didn't want to iyswim. I enjoy my time with my beavers - we have lots of fun.

BTW we have a two year waiting list for scouting. That's with two beaver colonies four cub packs two scout groups and explorers. We could open another group of each and barely make a dent in the list.

DD2 is a guide. I was very lucky she got a place as we have one guide pack for three brownie groups.

We need more volunteers. Even promising to be a regular helper will take pressure off the existing leaders.

"If anybody was to set up a boys only club for little boys where girls were excluded because of their genitals the uproar would be huge."

Erm there are loads.

There is no uproar.

Can I also point out that I find it offensive that you give equivalence to the enormous suffering of women and girls worldwide to one boy in the UK having to wait a few weeks to join a club he wants to go to. And further that your response is to immediately let males into female's spaces wherever they want, thus immediately rendering them inacessible to girls and women for varied reasons, and accepting that actually the same isn't about to happen the other way around.

Retro, as a theoretical stance, of course, brownies do indeed discriminate against young boys.

Show me any dad in the UK that would let his son go to brownies.

Honestly, ask any dance school in the land how many boys that they have in pre-primary ballet?