Brownies, a waste of time!

[Growuppeople]

My daughter has been with brownies over a year, they have been on one overnight trip. My DD wants to do scouts but she’s so shy around boys. She wants to do camping, building campfires, adventures! Not knitting or art and crafts! I pay nearly £50 for uniforms, £10 for the “new book” and now I have to go bowling with them. I thought they would learn independence, health and safety among other important life skills. Am I wrong in thinking I’m wasting mine and my daughters time, she is learning absolutely nothing, or is she just with a rubbish group? What do all your brownies do?

[budgiegirl]

Especially in the face of research which shows over and over again that when given free choice, men and women gravitate toward typical careers of their sex

Which is fine, as long as it is genuine free choice, and not a result of social conditioning.

I do hate those feminists who would throw young girls under the bus to STEM careers because they think females are underrepresented

No ones forcing young girls into STEM careers. But simply making sure that girls know these careers are open to them if they so choose. And that’s only going to happen if they are encouraged to take an interest in a predominantly male career choice, and are taught STEM subjects on the same basis as boys.

[QwertyLou]

GoFiguire

[QwertyLou]

What study has shown that, the one funded by the MRA Think Tank Institute? How do you control for free choice when people face sexist ideas from birth?

My 4yo son announced that “girls are nurses, boys are doctors!” Two of his aunts (that he sees often) are doctors (and love it thanks... nobody threw them under a bus). Yet these sexist ideas still exist so we need to support girls and boys not to limit themselves.

[BertrandRussell]

@interLibrary
Could you link to that research, please?

[drspouse]

when given free choice, men and women gravitate toward typical careers of their sex.
In what utopia do people choose careers freely?
Do tell.

[dingit]

My dd is doing an engineering degree. She did brownies and guides. She is now a brownie leader. She is doing an engineering badge with them this term, their camp has a strictly come dancing theme. Both inspired and led by dd

[BertrandRussell]

I suspect @interLibrary is off having a bit of a lie down to recover from the suggestion that straight white men may not be the disadvantaged group she/he thought they were.....

[MaybeDoctor]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with either Brownies or Cubs involving substantial doses of arts and crafts.

Most of those skills have now been squeezed out of the primary timetable in state schools. They are absorbing, screen-free and satisfying hobbies that develop concentration, hand-eye coordination and design skills. The experience of 'flow' that you get from accomplishing a craft such as hand-sewing or knitting relieves stress and is, I would suggest, as beneficial as any session of mindfulness.

There can be just as much developmental benefit from activities that involve individual concentration as from activities that involve risk, running around or matches.

[RiverTam]

inter reminds me of a situation I saw on another thread, whereby a man complained about the women's only swim session and why wasn't there one for men? Staff told him that if he could prove there was support for a men's only session they would happily timetable one in - just like the women had done. Of course he didn't want a men's only session, he just didn't want the women to have one.

[Ragnarthe]

@MaybeDoctor that's an excellent point. They seem to do hardly anything creative in school these days.

[budgiegirl]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with either Brownies or Cubs involving substantial doses of arts and crafts

I think there should be a mix of all sorts of activities. My cubs do camping, knots, fire lighting, night hikes etc, but we also do some craft - sewing, card making, cooking, para cord bracelets etc. Not sure if I have the patience to teach 28 children to knit though!

However, seeing as these groups are youth led (or at least should be) it could be that the OPs brownie group are choosing mainly crafts over the ‘outdoorsy’ type of activities.

In which case, the OP should either volunteer to run an activity herself, or encourage her DD to express her interests to the group, or find a different brownie or cub pack that has more in common with her DDs interests. It’s certaiy unfair to dismiss the group as ‘rubbish’ because they’ve only had one night away and are going bowling!

[Ragnarthe]

inter what do you mean when you say Girls are being cajouled and persuaded into STEM when it's really not a desirable career for anyone but a few angry protesters have decided that 50:50 gender representation must occur; anything else is proof of some patriarchal conspiracy.

Why is a STEM career not desirable for anyone?

I'm not being passive aggressive in the slightest I just genuinely wonder what you mean by that.

[Obloodyhell]

@interlibrary I think I love you

Not sarky
Not snippy
Not PA
Just respect

You’ve made my day

[budgiegirl]

Girls are being cajouled and persuaded into STEM when it's really not a desirable career for anyone

How is STEM not a desirable career? And I completely disagree with you. Girls are being offered the CHOICE of a STEM career by being encouraged to take an interest, when traditionally it was assumed that it was a ‘boys’ subject only.

My DD has been encouraged to take an interest in a huge variety of subjects and activities. What the hell is wrong with that?? No ones forcing her. She happens to love (and be very good at) STEM subjects. If, when she’s old enough, she chooses a course or career in this area, then great. If she chooses a career in a different area, then also great. At least she will have had the choice, Nobody has cajoled or forced her.

And that’s what hat I want for all my children, both my sons and daughter. The Choice.

[drspouse]

We're free to chose our career,
And nobody influences us? Nobody says to us in our formative years that girls can't do XYZ? We don't see any careers dominated by men and say "nah, not for us"?

The thing about the "gender equal" societies is that they are also a) generally richer and b) therefore it's possible for one of a couple not to work or not to work for as much money as possible - they do include "economic participation" in their gender equality measure but with countries like Burundi and S. Africa coming close to the UK, we are definitely not a shining beacon. Plus it seems a blunt instrument at best - Rwanda is near the top and frankly, NO.

So if a couple can rely on lower income from one partner (either because they don't work or because they work in a non-STEM area) then they have much more freedom generally to choose their job.

If you're a couple in, say, Poland and because the country is not doing well overall you both have to work and maximise income, you are likely to choose high earning jobs for both of you - your mothers went out to work and were scientists in the days of Communism when nobody chose their career (so your fathers were also scientists) - you have role models - there's a lot of former Eastern Bloc countries in the middle of that graph.

If you're a couple in Iceland or Norway and the country is rich overall, both of you are much freer to pursue a less well paid career as you will be backed up by society.
I bet we'd see more men choosing the arts as a career in the "equal" countries too.

[RiverTam]

I wonder whether nations with better sex equality are also more likely to have mixed sex schools? And thus sciences are dominated by boys?

Or, the more single sex schools you have the more girls go into STEM.

[drspouse]

I think the former Eastern Bloc countries have mainly mixed schools but the countries lower down (North Africa, the better off countries in Sub Saharan Africa, South America) are likely to have single sex schools.

[interLibrary]

@Ragnarthe

"Why is a STEM career not desirable for anyone? "

Underpaid and undervalued. It takes a long time to gain the credentials to stand out and get serious, long-term careers. Letters after ones name count for less and less and therefore wasting time in university accruing them takes longer and longer. A Post Doc and several degrees is the minimum, it seems. There's an incredibly career bottleneck.

STEM itself is corrupt. Funding-driven research has led to courses such as gender studies becoming mainstream in university with a scarily left-leaning faculty. Politics has invaded academia with an enormously negative effect on STEM students.

Working hours are long. The work is often tedious due to the over-qualified staff and job security is tenuous. The fields can change so quickly that your years of experience can become worthless.

For what it's worth, I spent 2 decades at university. I then monetised my experience moving into consultancy but I was lucky to be able to do so.

STEM is only alluring for those who see it as male dominated and think it must be unfair. I honestly believe that the main reason it's male dominated is due to the type of person it attracts and when you're talking about millions and millions of people, they're likely to be male.

The best thing about this fact is just how pissy all the deniers of innate difference get as it makes their protestations so empty and meaningless. The fact that male and female brains are different from mid-gestation goes right over their heads.

[RiverTam]

Asian? All the Asian and African girls in my girls school did science A levels, bar one. (Obviously some white girls did too.) Family pressure had a lot to do with it, one Saudi girl said that humanities were for those too stupid to do science.

[BertrandRussell]

As far as I am aware, the researchers into the “gender equality paradox” do not factor in early societal expectations and stereotyping. I accept that would be very hard to do, but it seems to me to be a perfectly sensible explanation as to why the numbers have not equalised yet.

Not sure why you are so insistent that STEM careers are so unsuitable for women. And I say s/he because I never assume anyone’s sex on here-it seems only polite not to.

[Ragnarthe]

But not all STEM jobs are in Universities or labs.

[BertrandRussell]

I see you have answered the “why are careers in STEM so bad?“ question. Thank you.
“The fact that male and female brains are different from mid-gestation goes right over their heads.“
Evidence please

[interLibrary]

@Drspouse

you managed to argue against yourself spectacularly there.

I do like the way you capitalised "NO". It seemed really authoritative. I definitely accept all you're saying now.

So, your issue is now the welfare state, or not. Because Algeria is also an issue for you. It might be because schools are mixed sex like @riverTam suggested. I hope she's correct. That way we get to blame boys again. Goody.

I'm a little dumbfounded at just how far you can stretch logic to suit your ideals when they fly in the face of logic, Occam's razor and science. Is it exhausting being you and always searching for a reason to be a poor, downtrodden woman? Whatever provable equality there is and despite it disproving your ideology, you'll search deeper and deeper for another reason.

As I said earlier, it seems the more people fail to succeed in modern society, the more they want to find an external source of their failure.

[QwertyLou]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but is medicine considered STEM? I thought so (there is a lot of S in medicine) but maybe not? Every female doctor I know finds a lot of satisfaction in her career, I only know a few female engineers but they do too.

I’m sure there are also women in STEM who don’t enjoy their work - women are not a monolith!

But just as I think boys should feel welcome to study early childhood education, girls should feel welcome in STEM. So as the mother of a boy (no girls) I’m supportive of the Girls in Science Day.