Recruitment war sets up battle for the sexes

a seemingly minor typo, in a brief posting on a emailing list for Boy Scouts in northern Virginia. But to the Girl Scouts, it was a red flag.

A Boy Scout volunteer from a United Methodist Church in Woodbridge, Virginia, was inviting young men and women to an upcoming information session, part of a US-wide recruiting push as the Boy Scouts prepare to include older girls for the first time next February.

The church, Scoutmaster Lee Hutchins wrote, would be chartering “one of our Girl Scouts BSA Troops.”

Girl Scouts BSA?

The label caught the eye of one Girl Scout volunteer, who forwarded it to Kathryn Benison, director of membership for the Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital. Benison was alarmed, she said. Would parents think the event was affiliated with the Girl Scouts? Would they assume the two groups had merged? The council decided Benison should go to the event, to “nicely set the record straight.”

It wouldn’t be the first time. In recent months, the Girl Scouts in the District of Columbia region have sent representatives, in uniform, to sit in on dozens of recruitment events hosted by Cub Scout and Boy Scout troops.

Last month, the Girl Scouts filed a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts for allegedly infringing on its trademark, sowing confusion and creating unfair competition. The battle between the youth programs echoes a divide that has been playing out across many arenas of American life amid the #MeToo movement, raising fresh questions about what it means to be male or female in 2018.

The Boy Scouts’ plan - which includes rebranding its namesake programme as Scouts BSA - was at first praised by many as an important stride toward inclusivity. But not long after, the president of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America fired off a letter to the Boy Scouts of America that accused the male organisation of waging a “covert campaign to recruit girls,” one that would “result in fundamentally undercutting” the Girl Scouts.

The dispute is now playing out across the country, with Girl Scout leaders going on the offensive to shepherd their organization into a new era of competition. At the center of that battle is the question of whether girls will get more “adventure” if they join the Boy Scouts, or whether the high value being placed on outdoor sports and survival skills is just another reflection of a male-dominated society that has little to do with teaching girls to be strong, confident leaders.

But Lidia Soto-Harmon, chief executive of the Girl Scouts Council of the Nation’s Capital, said it’s still important to combat the “stereotype out there that Girl Scouts don’t do high adventure.”

“We need to be present to make sure that that’s not the story that is told about us, because that’s not true,” she said.

Hutchins, the scoutmaster in Woodbridge, Virginia, said the move by the Boy Scouts isn’t about undercutting the Girl Scouts. It’s about giving teen girls an equal opportunity to rise in the ranks of a programme that is fundamentally different, he said.

“This isn’t about poaching the Girl Scouts,” Hutchins said. “I would be very surprised if the same girl would want to be part of both programmes.”

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Even as the Boy Scouts have become more inclusive, ending its ban on openly gay and transgender scouts, the youth programme has struggled with declining membership. In 2017, the Boy Scouts reported a total of about 2.28 million youth members, down 5.6 per cent from 2.42 million in 2014.

Then in May, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, which teaches that homosexuality is wrong, announced it would be cutting all ties to the Boy Scouts. The Mormons had been the group’s largest participant, making up nearly 20 per cent of all its youth members.

“It feels to me that they are in a fight for their survival,” Soto-Harmon said, “and girls seemed like the logical step.” – Washington Post.