Lady Doesn't Look Like A Dude: The Phenomenon of Girl Boy Scouts

I have taken a long hiatus from Loid&Peter, because I am, as I am sure many of you are, having a very productive summer. One of the many hobbies I have been focusing on is Scouting: I’ve earned an award for hiking over fifty-miles in four days with a few other guys and went to summer camp, for example. The latter put far more coherent questions in my head than the former, which were mainly along the lines of “how much farther?”, “how can my feet hurt that much?”, and “I want throw my body off of a stinking cliff.” Let me explain.

I know that there are so-called girl Boy Scouts, but it is not as though there are any in my Troop. There is a separate girls program our charting organization, the Catholic church that I attend, and it is recognized that leadership basically just uses that as an excuse to not accept girls into the Troop, which is decently smart the more I think about it, because it is not rudeness, it is deflection.

But anyhow, in the dining hall on the first day, I could not help but be surprised by how many girls there were in relation to the boys; a credible ratio would put the figure somewhere between one girl to every seven boys. Of course, that is just a ballpark estimation.

Let’s just say having well-accomplished, mostly attractive teenage girls paired with smelly, annoyed, strong, and yes, mostly dominant (I’ll get why I put the “mostly” in a second) teenage boys is not a good combination.

Two words: gaga ball. If any of you are not aware of gaga ball, it is a highly contested sport in which around twenty people and a ball are thrust into a sand pit covering area with a twenty-five feet diameter surrounded by fence. The objective is to hit the ball with your fist so that it hits another’s or others’ (collateral hits, we call them) feet so that they must exit the pit until the next game. It’s fun and very physical; one of my friends straight up body slams players. It’s fun to watch too. That friend, along with several other dudes, came up with the rule, that while already present in the Bro Code, had to be marked: get anime kid and girls out first. And I am not saying that to harp on women, I am saying it to say that girl Boy Scouts are universally a joke, and not in a totally bad way either.

Women are not a joke; my sister will tell you that. She is the middle child and the only girl out of five siblings. Girls, I’m sure you can understand how she acts with that kind of environment. She punches. But girl Boy Scouts are a joke, and not because they can’t do what Boy Scouts can. It’s phrasing, it’s the fact that it exists at all, and it’s the fact that girls will not fair well in an extremely masculine environment, the same way dudes won’t perform well in an extremely feminine environment. When was the last time you saw a dude sit at the all-girls table besides the gay guy and the one who always gets friend-zoned? I’m sorry, that’s just the way it works 95% of the time. It’s funny cause it’s true.

The results of the gender-mixing are obvious and expected. Let me give you two examples.

Mr. Captain of the Soccer Team got a date with a chick. Expected.

Girl in front of me asked for a dollar. I replied that “I am a despicable and greedy person.” Friend in front of me being the absolute simp (sorry, Ned) gives her the dollar. He leaves. Girl goes, with I might mention an ice cream cone already in her hand, takes out nine dollars I kid you not, and buys more candy. She wasn’t even fat either. She was pretty. That’s why he gave her the dollar, supposedly. What other reason would he have had? He wouldn’t trust any of the boys in our Troop with a nickel. I stood there with her just laughing my butt off. I’m laughing about it right now just thinking about it. Expected.

I don’t have to tell the rest of the story but I will. I tell him the girl tool his dollar. The look on his face was the greatest showing of a letdown I might have ever seen. The girl gives him back his dollar. I come back, and she and this other girl beat him. It was so bad that my friend who tells that I suck everyday and who every time that guy messes up, says “[last name] moment,” shook hands with me and collectively promised that we’d never bring this up to him again.

I mentioned this story to a girl friend of mine, introducing it as "the reason why girls should not be in the Boy Scouts." When I finished, she paused and said, "so the reason why girls shouldn't be in the Boy Scouts is because they are pretty?" Damn straight.

What’s the moral of the story? Don’t give anything at all ever without exception to girls. Well, maybe not that far.

We have a right to the norm after all. Girls being in Scouts makes it so much more awkward anyhow, things like having to have separate bathhouses or taking your shirt off to jump into the camp pool. It ain't cost-effective too I bet, with them having to have different facilities and getting the same portions as the boys, even though they probably don't need as much food.

Point is: it is both unfair to women and unfair to men that they have to deal with this rule that has been in place for three years. If you want to fix the Girl Scouts, fix the Girl Scouts. I would appreciate Scouts BSA, which is the official organization title, removing the BSA part, which stands for “Boy Scouts of America.” If you are going to be a contrarian, do not contradict yourself, please. Lastly, it is not that I do not want girls to not experience the same thing that us Boy Scouts experience. By all means, there should be a way for that.

The Girls Scouts are a joke. If we are the good virgin Christian boys (not that we all are, far from it), then they are pratty cookie-selling toxic girls that want to infect the world with the disease of “girl power”. Is it unfair and sexist? Sort of, if not a full yes; that’s the stereotype in my experience. I am not saying it’s cemented and backed up by truth, but I cannot help but feel that this is because there are very skilled Boy Scouts that are Good Samaritans in their communities, doing their Eagle projects and such, while the Girl Scouts do not tout their organization with campfires and a reliable handbook, but with cookies. I have to say this: in the middle of writing the last sentence, I decided to go onto the Girl Scout website to see if I was missing something, because I do not want to misrepresent them. Apparently though, they were well represented already; they literally have “Cookies” with a dropdown menu on the main interface as a separate tab along with information how to join and such. I did not even know that and as a loving Boy Scout I am called to be opposed to the Girl Scouts. One final funny anecdote: I typed into my web browser “do the girl scouts”, hoping to finish with “support Planned Parenthood”, the first result was “do the girl scouts still exist” and the last one was “does the girl scout in Beetlejuice die”. Hilarious.

Serious part now: if you want to experience all of the merit badges and the experiences, please do. I only think that there should be a completely separate organization for girls who want to be Scouts, or at the very least girl-only and boy-only Troops. I do not even have a quarrel with the differences present in physical competition between boys and girls with regard to a shared-gender Scouting experience. Rather, my quarrel is with the opportunities for the guys to harass the girls and not just be nasty to guys, but to girls too in a way that would be more perverse than it would guys being nasty to guys.

How about I make the simplest argument yet: don’t we all need a break from each other?

What do you guys think is the solution to this problem, or even is there a debate between us whether this is a problem at all?