Girls split on Boy Scouts’ decision to welcome them
Critics say co-ed groups favor males; proponents laud diverse options
When Alle Wolfer was 8, she decided to join the Girl Scouts. She pictured herself hiking, camping and fishing with other girls, but in two years of visiting area troops, she never found one that offered that kind of adventure.
She waited three years to join the Venture Scouts, a co-educational Boy Scouts program open to teens who have completed eighth grade. She found a particularly outdoorsy crew, about 70 percent female, that went backcountry camping every three months and hiked every other week.
Wolfer, now 21, said she would have joined the Boy Scouts earlier if she’d been able to.
“It felt like coming home,” she said. “I was excited to go to every meeting.”
The Boy Scouts of America’s announcement last week that it would add parallel girls’ programs has set up a clash, both nationally and locally, over what’s best for the girls in question. Boy Scout organizations say they’re just offering girls more options. Their Girl Scout counterparts argue girls develop greater leadership skills and selfconfidence in their own program.
Next year, the Boy Scouts will set up a girls’ program and a co-educational “family” program in the Cub Scouts, both with girl-only dens. In 2019, the organization will set up a “girl program” using the Boy Scouts curriculum, but individual troops will remain gender-segregated, local scout leaders said.
Councils will be able to set up integrated activities that bring together multiple dens or troops at their discretion, said Angel Martinez III, spokesman for the Alamo Area Council of the Boy Scouts.
The council will begin accepting girls’ applications to join the Cub Scouts on Jan. 1, he said.
“We welcome the new chapter in our history,” Martinez said.
Stephanie Finleon Cortez, chief development and communications officer for the Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas, said she worried a lack of volunteer leaders could cause packs and troops to become gender-integrated, no matter what the Boy Scouts of America now say. And if the two are mixed, the girls’ needs will not be met, Cortez said, because boys tend to take charge while girls generally have a more collaborative leadership style.
“That’s something to be concerned about on behalf of all girls,” Cortez said.
For preteens especially, the single-gender environment provides Girl Scouts an opportunity to gain self-confidence without worrying about boys’ judgment, Cortez said. Instead of isolating the girls, that confidence better prepares them for integrated activities, she said.
Autonomy, flexibility
The Boy Scouts already offer fully integrated programs, including the Venture Scouts, with different requirements for merit badges and advancement.
The Alamo Area Council of the Boy Scouts has about 300 girls in the Venturing program, amounting to about half of the program’s members. It serves about 18,000 traditional scouts and has about 5,000 in the school-based Learning for Life program, which is not governed by the Boy Scout oath or law, Martinez said.
Martinez is a Venture program adviser, and Wolfer became an associate adviser after aging out of it. She earned the Summit Award, the Venturing program’s highest honor, after installing benches at the Seguin Outdoor Learning Center, but said she would have loved to be an Eagle Scout — another possible draw for girls now considering the Boy Scouts.
Martinez said the council doesn’t know how many local girls will want to join the Boy Scouts, but Wolfer already has been getting questions from parents on their daughters’ behalf. She said she suspects girls might be interested in joining the Boy Scouts if they, as she did, fail to find a Girl Scout troop that meets their interests.
Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops have the autonomy and flexibility to pursue different preferred activities. Wolfer said there might have been a local Girl Scout troop for her — she just found the Venture program first. About half the girls in the Venture group she advises are also in Girl Scouts, she said.
The Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas serves about 15,000 girls in 21 counties, Cortez said. About half of the council’s girls are in traditional volunteer-led troops, and membership in that program has increased, Cortez said, but membership in alternative Girl Scout programs delivered in partnership with other groups is decreasing.
Cortez doesn’t think her council will lose membership to the Boy Scouts.
“I anticipate we will continue to serve some of the same families,” she said. “We just want to make sure we position Girl Scouting to talk about... the importance of an all-girl environment.”
Kara Weld, 16, joined the Girl Scouts nine years ago after hearing her father’s stories about his time in the Boy Scouts. She went camping every summer with her troop, mostly in cabins.
“I can be outdoors for a little bit, and then I need to go back into the air conditioning,” Weld said.
She earned the Gold Award, an honor comparable to Eagle Scout status, after lobbying the Legislature on behalf of an anticyberbullying law. Named David’s Law for local teen David Molak, who killed himself last year after relentless cyberbullying, it passed with bipartisan support during a difficult legislative session.
Given the choice, Weld said, she would stick with the Girl Scouts — “I really like all the opportunities it allowed me to have,” she said.
‘Fighting for equality’
Pamela Riles, a Community Chair overseeing six Girl Scout troops in San Antonio, also said she doesn’t think the Girl Scouts’ numbers will dwindle. Riles, who has led troops for 15 years, said the girls like the Girl Scouts’ mission, hanging out with each other and bonding with their leaders. And the chance to earn a Gold Award should not be less prestigious than making Eagle Scout, Riles said.
At this year’s national Girl Scouts convention, she saw one Gold Award project that educated a community in India where women were being shamed for their menstrual cycles — an impactful project, Riles said, that an Eagle Scout candidate would be less likely to undertake.
“We’re fighting still for equality and I think that has a lot to do with it,” Riles said. “The girls do not receive enough recognition for their Gold Awards.”
Wolfer said her own opinion why the Boy Scouts are creating gender-segregated units is that parents still fear what could happen when boys and girls, especially teenagers, are thrown together for certain activities, such as overnight camping trips.
“I hope that our eventual plan is to fully integrate scouting,” Wolfer said. “But change takes time.”