I was hoping to understand.
TO be very upfront I am a brown owl. I am planning this terms activities, and while I am bearing in mind all of the guiding principles I have to, what the girls find fun, I wondered why parents send their daughters and what they expect them to learn?
I was reading an old thread about a brownie unit having a Diva Night. The OP was upset at choice of songs for karaoke (understandably in my opinion) but other posters were questioning Diva Night at all. For me if the girls requested it, as one night out of the 40 I have them in a year, I would find a way to make it happen. Some times children like to dress up, and sing and dance, just as they also like to abseil, cook etc.
So what do you expect your daughters to get from Brownies?
And conversely, if you wouldn't send them, why not?
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Why do you send your daughters to Brownies?
AlbusPercival · 07/09/2015 15:09
DD says she hates brownies and I FORCE her to go. Damn right I force her, moaning all the way. Then I peek through the hall window and she is having a whale of a time and comes home on cloud 9. Then we do the same again next week 
I love the girl-led ethos but I do think sometimes they need a few possibilities opened up to them otherwise they have a tendency of repeating themselves. Our brown owl is fab and likes getting suggestions thankfully. And I send thank yous and volunteer etc.
Chickens, dd2 has cp and her stuff always goes down a treat for the disability awareness badge. Push the makaton thing - go in and teach them a few songs as well, then they can add them in to campfire/ sing-along.
Don't wait to be asked - speak to Brown Owl and ask if you can come in early in the new term and run some communication activities with the girls to promote a more inclusive environment - if you have a copy of the program book, offer to run the disability awareness badge with the unit (and dd can help run it with you). Just as a matter of interest, how did she make her promise? (Looking for other ideas too ;-) )
Tons of stuff they can do - they can incorporate signing into their opening and closing songs (does dd sign during these? The whole unit can be taught the actions too, so that she is not the only one). Games choices can be made on a board with Velcro (Brown Owl can have the choices laid out on the table and whoever is choosing the game can make the selection and put it up on the board). Use laminated cards that you know dd will be able to handle and then she can take her turn along with everyone else. If she can't pick it up from the table she can indicate the card and someone can hand it to her to tag on the board. Hooks work if the Velcro tabs are tricky (not sure how much fine motor she has). Same for songs - and you could make labels for all of the songs that they Unit knows the signs for.
Dd2 is now verbal, but she wasn't when she started. She's just moving up from guides into what passes for senior section here. She still struggles with fine and gross motor, but the girls are entirely used to her - I still see her on her own sometimes, but it is usually a snapshot, as for some activities she is right in the thick of it.
This summer she attended her first camp entirely on her own, with no one from the unit who was familiar for her. Terrifying, but we all survived and the confidence boost for her was awesome.
This year I have to work out how she can be incorporated into backpacking trips
Give me a shout if you need a hand 
I send my DD because I'm a Rainbows leader so she's been involved pretty much since birth 
- she's a badge hunter too, and loves the badges she can do with Brownies both at meetings and at home. We're in LaSER so have the benefit of all the Growing Up Wild paw prints which have been fantastic so far.
I love that she gets some independence from home on pack holiday (though I was a leader on her first one), and does things like district Brownie Revels, Thinking Day, church parade - all the thinking of others before yourself/community side of things really.
She's a sociable girl, but I like that her best friend from school goes to a different Brownie pack (deliberate choice on my part) as they tend to cling together otherwise which isn't always healthy.
ClearBlue - the girls in our district rock climb, hike, camp, kayak, canoe, cook over fires. They also may have a karaoke or spa night in a year, usually tied into a theme around media and image, peer pressure, or some of the WAGGGS goals around Thinking Day and looking at how women/ girls live in different parts of the world.
Our older girls come from three different schools in the town, and it is interesting (to them, as well as me!) that even in this microcosm, each school has it's own expectations of how girls should dress and behave (in terms of fashions, make-up, hobbies etc). The chat usually looks at peer expectations as well as formal school views. We usually use that to consider a wider scale of global female expectations both in the west and elsewhere. Sometimes we run a 'come as you would dress daily if there were no social expectations' night and we get everything from pjs to ball gowns. We are encouraging girls to find themselves, not to be defined by anyone else's expectations, and to have the courage to BE themselves. No one gets ostracized for either liking boy bands and glitter or for spending weeks under canvas in the wilderness with nothing but a water filter and a jet boil. They are all respected for being themselves.
I like to think that these girls have a safe place to discover who they really are, by being provided with (and organizing themselves) a vast rage of activities to try. They are all respectful of each other's choices, and we try to give them the freedom to make those choices. Including the option to head straight for the hikin' camp in' climbin' etc.
I don't believe they would get that freedom in scouting - and guiding provides all the same options as scouting, plus the activities that scouting disdains. That's not to say that I disdain scouting in any way. I have also been a scout leader (and am well versed in the outdoor arts lol). I actually see the same issues for boys that you are concerned with for your girls in guiding - in scouting their opportunities for choice are actually limited to the traditionally 'masculine'. Scouting and guiding should be places where these stereotypes are broken down. I can do that in guiding, but experienced more issues with doing the same in scouting (not from the boys, I hasten to add, but from other leaders and parents). It's interesting to me that guiding is trying to broaden girls' horizons and provide limitless opportunity, but that (some) parents want scouting to actively limit their daughters options, and are disdainful of the choice offered in guiding. I kind of get it. I mean, I was that kid who utterly eschewed the feminine and wanted to join the Marines.
In my day, no girls were allowed into scouting. When they needed female leaders as not enough men were willing to become scouters, and scouting was dying on its feet, they had to let in girls, and suddenly a whole swathe of girls and parents decided scouting was 'better' (understandable - we were all about the 'equality' and crashing into male dominated bastions etc etc). I probably would have done the same, myself. For me, the choice would not have been about scouting having different and better options, it absolutely would have been about proving that I was better than the guys at all that outdoors shit (I joined Air Cadets and did the same, although I never did manage to persuade the Marines to take me lol ;-) ) With a bit more maturity, I can see that choosing scouts would have just limited my options in the same way that you are concerned guiding does for your daughters.
Anyhoo - there is room for us all. I must get back to planning the October night challenge. Over 500 unaccompanied girls roaming the woods at night taking part in challenge stations, practicing their team work, and competing against teams from hundreds of miles away. They love it in exactly the same way a group of scouts does.
And I will continue to facilitate a cringe-making (for me) karaoke night if the girls want one. Last year one of the girls used the opportunity to practice her dj skills as her dad has all the gear. She set the whole evening up, as a follow on from a music appreciation night, where we looked at classical instruments, pop songs, and even a didgeridoo that they all tried to play... and randomly the most popular tunes in this group of early teens for the karaoke were the Disney ones. Amazing what happens when kids get the opportunity to be themselves lol.
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DD is 9 and loves Brownies. I wasn't a Brownie myself and was always a bit 
about it as I thought it would be girly and not as hands on as Scouts (sorry!) but I was wrong.
DD is off to a rugby activity with Brownies next week, where they get to see a ball signed by the Welsh team and write good luck messages to them for the World Cup.
Tonight she brought home a trophy and prize money from a craft competition she won at a local show with an item she made at Brownies.
She loves the Pack Holidays. Her favourite sleepover though was the Big Brownie Birthday Bash last year.
She is a Sixer and enjoys the responsibility of looking after the younger Brownies (she is the youngest child in the family so doesn't get this at home).
The only thing they've done in the almost 2 years that she has been a Brownie that she didn't want to do was a dance/performance show. She opted out of that and it was absolutely fine, no pressure to do stuff she doesn't want to.
Having seen how much she gets from being a Brownie I have completely changed my attitude towards them.
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