By Lindsay Welbers
I joke that I was a Boy Scout and that they still owe me a Polar Bear Badge. Scouts who camp out at night while temperatures dip below 32 degrees, including a full day of outdoor activity and the preparation of two hot meals, have earned the badge according to Illowa Council rules.
It’s true that I never belonged to a Boy Scout troop, but I attended more Pathways than most Scouts I have met did. My dad, though he had three daughters, was active in our local council and for years loaned the use of our alfalfa field to the Scouts. If you ever attended a Pathways retreat in a field in Spring Valley, Illinois with your local Boy Scout Troop, you’ve been in my backyard. I hope you had a good time.
Pathways was a wonderful event, I learned so much over those two days every spring. My sisters and I camped every year. Through Pathways I learned how to rappel down a tower, tie knots and operate a crane. I taught other scouts what I knew about horsemanship and I had my bravery tested when I jumped off the zipline. What I think I looked forward to the most was the annual secret after-lights-out capture the flag game. Friends I made through the annual event would gather their friends late at night after everyone else had gone quiet. Behind the rolled hay bales we choose teams and played capture the flag across 18 square acres of open field. When the weather was bad you shivered in tall, wet grass. If the weather was good and the sky was clear, often the Milky Way was out.
There have been headlines in recent weeks about girls who are lobbying to be admitted into the Boy Scouts. These young ladies are extremely talented and capable and deserve every recognition they have already earned. I don’t know if letting girls into the Boy Scouts or boys into the Girl Scouts is the right answer or not, I’ll leave that up to people who know better than me to decide. What I think needs to happen is a shift in thinking on all sides about what scouts take away from outdoor adventures and scouting; and the way society writ large values those who work hard to achieve its highest honors.
Officially, I was a Girl Scout. My troop consisted of girls in my class and we met monthly through the end of 5th grade when our leaders disbanded. (Busy moms, I guess.) Girl Scouts was a great way for girls to learn and grow in an environment free from boys. The Girl Scouts has always been responsive to the changing worlds girls occupy. In the last few years the Girl Scouts have put additional emphasis on STEM programming, which is a huge step ahead towards helping girls become the women who will build our future digital and physical infrastructure. The Girl Scouts have always had a strong commitment for giving girls accurate information about their bodies. They have always been inclusive of all girls. The Girl Scouts are a vital bridge towards gender parity and they deserve every commendation. Also, I will buy every box of cookies any Girl Scout wants to sell me.
Day camp with the Girl Scouts was just different in so many ways than how we spent our time at Pathways. At Girl Scout Camp we recycled old paper into crafty notebooks, made campfire pies, crafted toilet paper wedding dresses and put on a fashion show. Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast, but it wasn’t the same kind of merit-and-boundary testing activities I got to do with the Boy Scouts.
Maybe my experience is not universal and there are other troops who got to engage in more exciting or challenging activities. I hope so. I don’t think our troop leaders were actively denying us any kind of experience, I think they were busy moms who hadn’t themselves been exposed to the kind of outdoor adventures Boy Scouts had access to for generations. Every crossing over ceremony I participated in with the Girl Scouts involved crossing a bridge placed in the center of a banquet hall, and giving the three-finger salute. In the Boy Scouts I jumped off a 25-foot-high platform and soared down a zipline into the middle of the alfalfa field. I took more away from standing on the edge of the platform and willing myself to jump than I did walking across a decorative bridge on a linoleum floor.
The outdoors industry has a long way to go before women are represented equitably. That’s part of the problem. We’re 51 percent of outdoors consumers, but only 12.5 percent of major outdoors companies have women CEOs. Only 37 percent of the National Park Service’s employees are women. Things are turning around, Outside Magazine devoted an issue to women this year, Misadventures Magazine puts the focus squarely on what women do in the outdoors (it’s not attract bears). REI’s Force of Nature initiative puts women’s outdoor accomplishments at the center of its campaign, and includes more women-specific gear in its stores. Let’s face it, if a 60 liter pack was designed for a man, it just isn’t going to sit right on a woman’s hips and it will lead to discomfort and maybe injury.
This is all great progress. Today’s girls are growing up in a world where stock photo women are climbing mountains more often than they’re laughing at salads. Don’t tell me that kind of representation doesn’t matter. But it doesn’t do much to fix the generations of women who came before us who didn’t have that same kind of access or representation. The Girl Scouts handbook printed from 1953-1977 put equal emphasis on home making and outdoors adventuring. Those women were definitely given skills and tools they needed, but that sort of structure would be appalling by modern standards. It made sense at the time, but it does not now.
The Girl Scouts should definitely stay the course with their efforts to get girls into entrepreneurial adventures, learning to code and other STEM initiatives at an early age. Those are vital to success in adulthood and in achieving gender parity in business and tech. Crafts are wonderful and the tradition of women creating what they need themselves is more important today than ever before. One way we might be able to jump ahead? Actively encourage girls to leave their comfort zones and give them the same kind of mettle- and boundary-testing experiences I had at Pathways. Teach them to operate a crane and tie knots and rappel down a tower.
Maybe the answer is for the Girl Scouts to do more to get girls outside and into the backwoods. That probably means actively recruiting women to volunteer with or lead troops into the woods. If our foremothers aren’t comfortable or don’t feel equipped to lead a backcountry adventure, then I guess it’s our job to do. That also means eliminating the roadblocks that keep women out of the woods in the first place. Make it easier for families with children to get into the outdoors. Create more accessible campsites and programming. Create scholarships that give low-income girls a space at camp.
The answer might be that Boy Scouts should welcome girls into their membership. That system works in Boy Scouts organization across the globe. No Boy Scout I ever met at Pathways treated me like I was any less capable or deserving of being there. The Girl Scouts have always been run and organized exclusively by women, that’s important. Boy Scouts are sometimes dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. There’s a lot of value girls can gain from building something and learning in an environment free of boys, and the same value exists for boys in an environment free of girls. It might seem like an antiquity, but maybe we don’t have enough of it.
One thing we can do is make a much bigger fuss about the girls who do the hard work it takes to achieve the Gold Award, the equivalent to Eagle Scout. The hard work and community commitment it takes to achieve Eagle Scout unlocks many opportunities for boys, including scholarships, advancements on career tracks and the military. These same opportunities are not as prevalent for Girl Scouts who achieve the Gold Award. If we make a bigger deal about it, more girls will achieve it. It’s kind of indicative of the whole problem, don’t you think?