to think that Scouting should be one group now?

[Flatpackjackie]

As girls are allowed in Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, why aren't boys allowed in Rainbows, Brownies and Guides?

Or better still, just have one group for Beavers/Rainbows ages, one for Cubs/Brownies, etc?

Seems outdated and daft to separate by sex, especially as the Scouting groups include girls anyway.

(Not a TAT, not about trans issues at all.)

Saying hey well we know it's not right or unfair to exclude boys,regard them all as one negative group and just ignore their needs is wrong

Again, no one is regarding boys all as one negative group. No one is ignoring their needs. Guides fulfil a need for some girls. Why should it be their responsibility to meet the needs of some boys as well? Scouts fulfil the needs of another set of boys and girls. There are many cub/scout groups that at least attempt to fulfil the needs of as many types of boys and girls as possible - I know, I run one of them, but of course you can’t please everyone all the time.

If your son didn’t like Scouts (and not all do) then try a different scout group, or a different club altogether, there’s lots of mixed groups out there - Boys Brigade. Air Cadets, St Johns Ambulance, craft groups, sports clubs etc. If you genuinely can’t find a place that boys similar to your son can enjoy, then don’t just whine about it, set up your own club, how do you think these clubs get up and running in the first place.

But don’t try to insist that the one place that girls can go to be by themselves should become mixed to cater for the needs of your son. What about the needs of those girls, are they less important?

Still not understanding why asking scouts to control the alpha male behaviour is terrible but trampling all over the rights of girls to have a girl only space is okay.

The fact that you think your boy’s choice is more important than all those girls’ rights is EXACTLY why we need girls only spaces!

He's now found a diff kind of social group that doesn't segregate which he really enjoys and fits in

Perfect then! So there are clubs out there that meet the needs of your son and others like him. Just as Guides meets the need of girls who want a girl only space.

Different children, different needs. It’s exactly because not all children are the same that different types of clubs exist.

"And as for demanding and high maintenance simply because my son just wants to go with his friends to Guides.hmm We are not the ones suggesting Scouts should be completely changed just for him."

No. You are suggesting that instead of an already mixed group considering why some members feel excluded in some troops, and in doing so address with boys the issues around masculinity in society which will benefit everyone, a group of girls budge up, completely change their organisation to suit the wants of boys.

While I defend the right for Guides to remain female only I am not convinced that it is necessarily 'best'.
One of the major issues is discipline, starting in the home then school and beyond. It is very difficult getting anything done with PEOPLE, girls and boys nattering, pulling faces, messing with mobiles etc.
The only real sanction at Scouts, Guides etc is exclusion.
It seems than NONE can actually sit or stand still for as much as 5 minutes before messing around and being disruptive.
Those who mess about continually spoil it for the whole group. Leaders just want to spend a few minutes at the start of a meeting saying what the plan is for the session then get on. This 'modern' practice of letting everyone do what they want with seemingly no consequences IS an issue, sometimes made worse by 'arsey' parents who want to know why Jocasta was not selected to be 'team captain' or whatever when 'dear Jocasta' spends most of the time acting the disruptive spoiled brat. (Name changed to protect the guilty).
I am sure that many leaders would love the choice of youngsters to join a group. Say by observing a mixed group of 100 and selecting 25 and 'binning' the rest. Unfortunately rules say we have to accept all comers. Parents treating these organisations as 'cheap childminders' are the worst.

Just echoing what another poster asked, are there no boys brigades around anymore?

My daughters do Girls Brigade and have great fun at their events. I do think it's important that boys and girls can each have separate groups if they want to access them.

I don't know what 'issues' Toomanytealights's son had and I am sorry she feels like this but you have to remember that ALL these volunteer run groups will be different. 'My' group did a lot of outdoor stuff, another group in the same town did relatively little. Ideally you would find one that is nearby that does fit your child.
Yet another factor is that the youngsters often want to stay with school or home friends, so they all have to want to do the same things.
Don't like the local group? Get off your 'posterior' and start another.

*Just echoing what another poster asked, are there no boys brigades around anymore?

My daughters do Girls Brigade and have great fun at their events. I do think it's important that boys and girls can each have separate groups if they want to access them*

I believe that Boys Brigade now accepts girls as well. There aren’t many clubs that are boy only, I can’t think of any in our area, even football seems to run a girls team and a mixed team ( although it’s all boys at the moment, girls can join).

Maybe there’s just not the demand for boys only clubs the way there is for girls.

I can't think of anything girls only things except Guides.

I can't think of anything girls only things except Guides

Girls Brigade? Although I'm not sure, they may accept boys if requested?

One of our local primary schools has run a series of science clubs for girls only, but they only ran short term as one offs.

There is too much adversarial thinking going on. Boys as a group are not against girls as a group. Teaching to work collaboratively to take the strengths from each other is what SHOULD be happening. Hothousing girls because boys are 'nasty' is not a solution. If you put a group of only girls on a desert island there would still be bickering and fighting and some will get the crap jobs. The louder, aggressive ones will want to be leader and the 'meek' do the manual graft.

As I posted upthread IIRC.
Boys' Brigade now takes girls.
Girls' Brigade doesn't take boys. AFAIK whether they identify as a girl or not.

outabout I don't think GG should be girls-only because I think boys are anti girls. The boys may be perfectly nice and not intending to talk over the girls/push their own suggestions/tell girls they aren't as good at football as them, but that's how society has brought them up so far. Once society (i.e. adults, especially adult men) stops doing that I'll be happy to abolish girl-only spaces.
Not the girls' responsibility to train the boys, it's the adults' responsibility.

Lots of dance schools end up as girls only spaces tbh or they end up with one or two younger boys.

But that is to do with morons that say that boys shouldn’t dance.

“Hothousing girls because boys are 'nasty' is not a solution.”

Have you really taken this from the posters who want Guides to remain girls only?

“Hothousing girls because boys are 'nasty' is not a solution.

No-one is talking about hot-housing girls. Just giving girls a space in male dominated areas to find out what they are capable of for themselves.

And a space where girls who for cultural, religious and family reasons would not be allowed to do activities with boys can at least experience some freedom.

Teaching boys and girls to get on with each other from a very young age is the best way to get them to integrate and create a fairer society. Adult intervention to tame the wilder excesses is necessary of course.
The world IS shit and you have to get over this fact. Putting girls in a 'protected environment' then letting them loose into a hostile world is not helping them at all. Teaching boys and girls that BOTH can be equally successful, maybe in slightly different fields is important.
OK some boys may be obnoxious arses, as can some girls, but witnessing the boys/girls of less extreme behaviour shows there does not have to be conflict. I have had lousy female bosses in the past, essentially promoted beyond their capabilities.

Cultural and religious are sexist environments. Family? What are you meaning?

Putting girls in a 'protected environment' then letting them loose into a hostile world is not helping them at all

With the possible exception of religious reasons, that's not what is happening. The majority of girls who go to Guides, I would think, go to mixed schools and have plenty of interaction with boys. Guides is just a space that for a couple of hours a week, they can be themselves without having to worry what boys think of them.

My DD goes to a single sex secondary school (was at a mixed primary). She goes to Scouts. She has big brothers. She has a few male friends, although the majority are female. She'll be ready to be let loose into a hostile world, I'm quite sure.

I'm a firm believer that by having a 'safe space' to learn, my DD will grow up to know she can do anything she wants, regardless of gender. She certainly doesn't seem to have any particular concept of 'girl' activities and 'boy' activities at the moment (she's 12). She wants to be an airline pilot.

“Cultural and religious are sexist environments. Family? What are you meaning?”

Of course they are. But girls need ways to get into the outside world and experience other ways of life. Guides can offer this. Family- I just meant girls like a couple of my dd’s friends who weren’t allowed to join her in Scouts because their parents didn’t want them mixing with teenage boys in the evenings. Guides was the only place they were allowed to go.

Tomorrow - my son left ballet because the girls in his class told him he shouldn’t be there, because ballet is for girls. Clearly that changed in the intervening six years, because at his most recent school, the girls were fawning all over him.
I run the desert island / create your own society and government exercise every year with my guides. Giving girls an opportunity to consider societal roles without being hampered by the male gaze is crucial. It usually starts off pretty lame (what are we going to call our country) but over the course of the evening I ask different questions of each group - who does the childcare? Who cooks? What work is necessary for your society to survive? How are decisions made? Do you have government? Do you have rules? Who makes the rules? What do you do if someone transgresses?
I love it. They move from essentially replicating a western society (with gender roles, ageism etc) to actually sitting back and considering how societies are set up and whether norms can be (or should be) changed.
Leaders of the future