Girls Scouts vs Boy Scouts when it comes to Woodworking Badge - my rumblings.

[Biff Phillips]

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That's disappointing to me, but I guess it's a subjective thing.

Jim, it's just not feasible to have Boy Scouts be completely coed.
Remember the ages are something like 11-18.
How are you going to do an overnight co-ed camping trip when the mixed genders are in puberty?
What about issues of a leader being a different gender than the kids?
It would be nice in an ideal world to mix them at all ages, but it's a liability issue.

It's hard enough to get parents to volunteer to be leaders.. the troop my kids were in required
many hours of training, background checks, and other invasions of privacy.. I understand, the scouts
have to protect themselves, but it sure makes it more difficult to get volunteers. Then to ask parents
to watch a mixed gender program? What happens parents accuse the troop of letting her daughter get pregnant on an outing? It doesn't matter if that's what actually happened, there will be a lot of outrage.

[Jim Becker]

Bill, so-called "church camps" have been doing coed experiences since even before I was a kid in the 1970s so I just don't buy that to be a problem that isn't solvable. All of this is is societal gridlock that is learned and it's all also solvable if folks actually want to do it. In fact, gender based segregation actually reinforces inappropriate behaviors, IMHO. I'm not the only one who feels this way, but I also understand and accept that others may take the opposite view. And just to be clear, separate "housing" is certainly appropriate, but separate educational experiences do not have to be the norm.