Will this see the demise of the Girl Guides?

[anotheoldgit]

Or are all the boys joining the Girl Guides now?

/// Leaders believe the rise is a result of numerous changes to make the Scouts more attractive to girls, such as abandoning its traditional military-inspired uniforms in favour of T-shirts and combat trousers ///

"Abandoning its traditional military-inspired uniforms in favour of T-shirts and combat trousers"?????????

Are not 'combat trousers', er, slightly 'military-inspired'?

[B00]

i don't understand why they're doing this to be honest.

[DTCwordfan]

the boys can wear the panties and the girls the shorts.

[sandyRoe]

Will Baden-Powell's book, 'Scouting for boys', need to be retitled? Scouting for children would still cause a few eyebrows to be raised.

[anneasquith]

ohhhhhhhhhhh ! naughty sandy !

[anotheoldgit]

Sorry forgot the link,

http://tinyurl.com/6dl9zjs

[chelle7272]

lol sandy

[saxy_jag]

Could it be because in the Scouts they're no mollycoddled and 'girlified' so much. Way back when girls had only just been allowed to join the Venture Scouts we had three join us from the Guides. Their reason? "It's much more fun here, we're allowed to do more and we get to join in with the boys.".

I do remember being out canoeing one weekend a few years ago and witnessing a group of Guides on the water. The kids in our club group were having a whale of a time getting one another soaked to the bone, whereas the Guide leader announced very clearly to her group, "Girls, no splashing each other, please!".

[ABerrant]

"Or are all the boys joining the Girl Guides now?"

Well obviously not since boys are not allowed to join Girl Guides.

Policy statement
Girlguiding UK is a single‐sex organisation in accordance with the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1986. Girlguiding UK believes that the needs of girls and young women are best met through an organisation catering specifically for girls and led by women.

http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/home.aspx

[B00]

But surely they can't do that now ABerrant? Not now girls can join the scouts, seems a bit one sided doesn't it?

[pretty_snowdrop]

My six year girl goes to Beavers. I asked her if she wold like you join Rainbows instead. She replied 'don't be stupid that's for girls'..... say no more!!

[ABerrant]

Unless Jeff Banks is under 15 years of age he cannot be a "Girl Guide" nor could he join the Senior Section for ages 15-25. Males are allowed to join as adult helpers (or as designers of their uniform!) - that is the Guides concession to equality.

Females were first invited into Venture Scouts in 1976 and into the younger sections of the Scout Association in 1991.

[B00]

Seems horribly one sided- wonder how much of a kerfuffle there'd be if it was the other way round? The boys could join rainbows/brownies/guides but girls couldn't join the male equivalent.

[anotheoldgit]

ABerrant

/// It comes on the back of an 88 per cent increase in young female members since 2005, during which time it has also become compulsory for all groups in Britain to be co-educational. ///

Taken from the link, so how come the Girl Guides can get away with this co-educational ruling?

Is this yet another example of EQUALITY" appertaining only to certain groups?

[ABerrant]

The groups referred to are Scouts groups i.e. all Scouts groups since 2007 must be co-educational.

This from an article published a year ago...

Guiding UK's Liz Burnley... tells me the Guides have remained single-sex because it enables girls to mature better. They regularly conduct "Girls Shout Out!" surveys to ask girls for their views. But the overwhelming response is: boys can be loud and aggressive, and won't listen to girls. "They have repeatedly told us they want a girls-only space, to really be themselves."

"The single-sex policy remains a good one, I think," says Diana, a magazine journalist, now 40. "Allowing tweenies and teens one arena where there are free from the pressure to look good and impress boys has to be a positive thing. When kids are under so much pressure to achieve academically and have such a huge and prescriptive curriculum, I think the most important thing the movement can offer girls today is somewhere to have that rare commodity: uncomplicated fun in a safe environment."

http://www.independen...e-better-1942867.html

[B00]

i think its appalling to be honest. I'm sure if you asked the boys in the scouts their opinion, they'd prefer it if the girls weren't allowed to join them either.

Don't get me wrong ,im not not (double negative?) in favour of girls joining the scouts, but all things should be equal ,the boys should then be able to join the guides if they so wish.

[jno]

good point about the combat trousers, aog. I suppose they mean "abandoning the clothes worn during the Boer war and replacing them with the clothes worn by 21st-century jungle guerrillas". They must keep up with modern standards of warfare when they indoctrinate modern youth.

I suppose you could open the Guides to boys but I can't imagine many of them joining.

[FredPuli43]

We have adopted co-educational schooling. To the surprise of some, it works. The Guides and Scouts have no sensible reason to be divided by sex; they are not the Treorchy Male Voice choir of the Dagenham Girl Pipers (if they now exist), organisations where the sex of the members is an essential and necessary element for its purpose.

[FredPuli43]

^ or,not of^ The idea of a male choir being of the Dagenham Girl Pipers is too alarming to contemplate.