To feel weird about Brownies because there’s a boy there?

[ElizaDolittle124]

Was invited to Brownies tonight to see my daughter do her ‘promise’. Was a bit awkward as it turns out there’s a boy in the group. Another parent turned up with a younger sibling who immediately said loudly ‘mummy why is there a boy here?’ The mum was v flustered trying to explain he wanted to join in and the child just said ‘but brownies is for girls’ until she told him to be quiet.

I just feel a bit weird that I didn’t know. The whole reason we joined brownies was for the girls only environment, which my daughter was really excited about. Feel like I should have just put her in the scouts instead now (which would have been more convenient). But my friend is one of the brownie leaders and she encouraged me by promoting the idea of a girl’s only space.

There’s a brownie camp sleepover thing next month where they sleep in dormitories. My daughter can’t go anyway as we have other plans that weekend, but it’s got me wondering how they’re going to arrange that? Surely they can’t have the boy sleeping separately in a room on his own, but equally he can’t go with the girls?

This may have been true 20 or so years ago. However i see so much male bashing in recent years and as a mother of boys it does concern me. The general excuses seem to be 'oh well men have had the upper hand for centuries so lets punish the new generations'.
I believe that if girls must have their own spaces then so should boys, but better still to let them all be mixed because what kind of message is it sending out to both boys and girls that girls must be segregated and protected like delicate flowers. They would benefit more about learning each other's challenges and would grow up to be more understanding adults/partners.

For anyone wondering about value of girl only spaces, I linked girls attitude survey, it’s shocking reading just how many girls affected by sexism and from how young.
https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/globalassets/docs-and-resources/blogs-and-case-studies/gas/girlguiding-girls-attitudes-survey-2025.pdf
We don’t sit there saying boys are rubbish.
What we do is run strong female led groups and give girls a safe place to be themselves and develop.
We do a wide range of activities. I do age 10-13 so we’ve done sessions with army, navy, fire brigade, police, mountain rescue, local football club. Stem activities. Outdoor adventures. Some crafts and cooking too. Life skills like interview/cv, public speaking, budgeting. We do a real mix. Lots of team work.
At end of session we often play games. Some of my yr 8s already wear makeup yet they’ll happily run around playing a very silly game they have played since 4 year old rainbows. If there were 13 yr old lads there they wouldn’t do that.
I can see benefit guiding made to my life and my now adult DD’s and I give up hours of my time to ensure other girls get these opportunities.

Where have I said boys don't have long hair or that boys dominate?

I'm sorry your DD was bullied. But I have to ask why if she was bullied she then went to guides? Was the bullying policy followed? What interactions did you have.

Then you send her to a girls' school? It's not clear from your post but it read as though it was the same girls in all three environments. Why would you send her to the same school as her bullies?

Your DD had horrible experiences but that is no reason to close all single sex spaces.

There were two girls in my son's Cub group for about 3 weeks. I don't think they cared for being with a group of 10 feral boys.

Boys and Girls are different, shocker - who'd have known.

I find these so shocking. The youngest girls Surveyed are 7, brownies.

It depends on area but many scouting groups are girl heavy now with female leaders. But they won’t have the specific girl focused initiatives eg Rolls Royce have partnered with girl guiding recently to try and encourage more females into stem careers.
Some girls prefer a mixed group and that’s fine. We have long waiting lists, girls are desperate for a place. If parents don’t like ethos sign up for another activity group it’s not compulsory.

I’d discreetly ask. It would bother me tbh if a boy joined brownies and I didnr know this particular group id joined wasn’t girls only.

When my DS joined scouts he was happy as "no girls there" then a couple of years later he and his friends were unhappy as girls could join and therefore women leaders and they spent more time sitting and drawing.

It’s awful. My 6yo daughter and her friends have been called ‘fat pigs’ by a 6yo boy in their class and have had comments made about their appearance. He doesn’t call boys that, just the girls. This is where it starts and it’s terrifying.

I run both Rainbows and Brownies units and help out with Guides some weeks and some of the stuff I hear really makes me realise how valuable it being a single-sex space is.

We did a special session around a stereotypes and it was sad to see how girls as young as 7 and 8 believed certain jobs, sports etc were only for boys.

My husband used to run a boy's football club and one of the astonishing (to us) things was how much the sons' interests took precedence in many families. Sisters would be dragged along to watch their brothers play - they weren't being driven around to activities on a Saturday morning.

Fact is, for some girls Brownies is what they will get - if they are lucky.

They are already second class citizens in their own families. They don't need to encounter boy's there too, often dominating due to the huge social benefits of being raised male.

Yes we did the jobs thing, lots picked men side despite it being profession of two of the female leaders!
We’ve also done the read a scenario and then answer questions. So many assume the nurse in story is female, the Dr male etc. This is 10 yr olds.
Don’t think a girls only space has value don’t send your child but please don’t dismiss them as unnecessary.

It wasn't even true 40 years ago, when I went. When I went, it was basically massively focussed on retaining the traditional roles of women. About 70% of the badges were for 'homecrafts' such as knitting, sewing, cooking and cleaning. The first aid stuff was good, but honestly it was about 40 years out of date then.

I'd hope it's changed a bit since then, but most of it seemed to be about how to be a good wife and mother, putting everyone else before yourself and being a dutiful daughter.

Have a look at current programme it’s nothing like that. We do skills builders lots of focus on developing skills like leadership and teamwork.

I'm glad it's a lot better than it was 40 years ago when I went. Brownies was, when I was a girl, about 40 years out of date, to be honest. 70% (probably more than that, to be honest) of the badges were for 'homecrafts', cooking, sewing, cleaning, etc. Doing chores at home.

First aid stuff was good, though.

Of course, back then we could only listen enviously to our brothers coming back from scouts and talking about the fun stuff they did after we'd spent the evening learning how to put a Terry nappy on a doll.

It was still very much moulding the housewives of the future. And I suspect it might have been the lack of change in the approach that drove the movement to make Scouts co-ed, when what they should have done was get the guiding movement out of the 1950s.

Glad to see that might actually have happened.

It was probably something like this. Or maybe a sibling who just decided to join in.

Wearing uniform and taking the promise?

Sex, not gender.

Definitely nothing like that in my units!

We do a lot of STEM stuff, learning about money, first aid, camping and survival, arts and crafts, we do trips to PGL, we’ve done axe throwing, archery, scavenger hunts in the foreat, geocaching, code breaking, designing video games. I don’t think my girls would be interested in home making skills although they do like baking cakes! And eating them. We do some cookery around how to prep fruit and veg too and they get a chance to use knives, many of them for the first time, learn fire skills, etc,

@ObelixtheGaul.
Scouting went mixed due to failing numbers and fact they couldn’t attract enough male volunteer leaders. It was go mixed sex or fold. Guiding has large numbers of girls wanting places, the issue is not enough volunteer adult leaders.
I was a brownie over 40 yrs ago and yes more home crafts but we still did outdoor skills and activities, community service etc.
New badges were just released end late year and very much reflecting current interests.

I do think all Scouts and Girl Guiding members should learn to sew though so they can sew their own bloody badges on! As the mum of a very badge passionate Rainbow, I am counting down till she has the dexterity to sew them on herself!

I think some of it depended on the volunteers. Mine was a small village one, the 'owls' were all in their 60s. We didn't do anything outdoorsy or anything like that.

For all that, I quite enjoyed the games, etc. Hated guides, though. Lasted two weeks.

I do think all Scouts and Girl Guiding members should learn to sew though so they can sew their own bloody badges on!

Everyone ought to be able to sew enough to mend their own clothes (and knock up a basic Nativity costume).

Sailors were expected to sew - we used to have the sewing kit my late dad was issued with in the Navy.

Look for badge glue 😘

Obviously that's no solution.

It doesn't change the fact that yes, with regards to young kids, the Taliban is guessing to an extent.

What do you think the key visual differences are between boys and girls at that age?

I do think it's a bit of a generalisation to say 'so many women bow to men', though sadly that is true in many relationships (not just the MN Relationships board which will ofc give a skewed sample). Moreover, today we DO have a lot of examples of women in a variety of powerful positions.

There is still a lot of sexism though in various forms, so I can see that value of having Girlguiding still.