> Interestingly, only the US and Japan have gendered scouting organizations.
> (Might be wrong on this, it's been at least a decade since I learned that)
And Canada. UK has partially-gendered scouting, but the boyscout organization becomes co-ed after a certain age, the girl side can remain separate indefinitely. I think it's somewhat separated in México as well, they have more different associations though, AFAIK.
I think most countries which have scouting organizations have a gender separation.
No, you can't.
Because girls need a safe space to be girls (without any boys around) a lot more than boys need any more spaces where they can be boys without any girls around (there's enough of those).
> No, you can't. Because girls need a safe space to be girls (without any boys around) a lot more than boys need any more spaces where they can be boys without any girls around.
It is not true that the Scouts in Canada are male-only. I have nieces who are proud and enthusiastic Scouts in Canada. (No idea about the Girl Guides.)
Ahh, looks like you're right. Seems nobody ever tries to get boys into the girl guides, frankly it seems a bit unfair that there is basically nowhere boys can be boys.
The individual scout groups and leaders have plenty of opportunity for making gender separation in tasks, patrols or troops. I don't really see that enforcing separation from the organisation level is very useful.
Noticeably, neither organization mentions "outdoorsy skills" in its vision. Both discuss good citizenship, but exactly what that means is only stated in very subjective terms. And once you go past the platitudes, all the subjective details start dominating.
If you read through the BSA oath and law, you'll find a lot of subjective words. "Loyal" (to who?). Friendly (to who?).
Obedient (to what law/rules?). Brave (in the face of which adversities?). Clean (holy shit is this a loaded word in Christendom... official BSA position as recent as 2012 was that homosexuality is "unclean" -- a position that IMO completely undermines the entire oath by opening every entirely subjective word up to politically motivated interpretation). "mentally awake and morally straight" are obviously totally subjective.
GSA uses similar words, but do they mean the same thing? I don't think so. As national organizations, I think the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are trying to support/develop/foster fundamentally different types of people. These national politics are often, but not always, mirrored in local troops.
FWIW, I do agree that scouting should primarily focus on outdoors activities and irrefutable moral goods mostly disconnected from the culture wars (don't lie/cheat/steal as a general rule; understand how your government works; be a helpful force in your community).
And it does seem like things are slowly moving that way, as national organizations realize it's not in their best interest to inject themselves into culture wars. And a lot of troops have always managed to do exactly that. But others (e.g., my bsa troop as a child) spend a lot of time on religious and social indoctrination.
So, BSA and GSA really are different organizations with different goals, because all the words their missions share are totally subjective, and each organization interprets those subjective words differently. At least at the national level. And those differences are mirrored in many localities.
They kind of do. They are very different organizations, they just happen (not by coincidence, of course) to serve different genders. But it's the organizational structure and goals that's of primary interest. That really can't be merged.
It is more likely that both would expand to include all kids rather than they merge.
