As more and more women are joining the fight to be considered equal to men, little girls are now also raising their voices.
As The New York Times reported, five girls in California who call themselves the Unicorns are fighting to join the Boy Scouts because their outdoor activities are a better fit for their interests.
The girls were allowed to participate in activities alongside the boys until parents started complaining that the coed program was inappropriate.
No one can blame these girls for insisting on more enriching outdoor activities that help them become more self-sufficient, but the way in which they are approaching the situation probably isn’t fair to both parties.
“When we get into the real world, we’re going to have to work with other people who are, like, not just girls,” 10-year-old Ella Jacobs said to The New York Times, insisting she should be allowed to join the Cub Scouts.
There is no denying that Jacobs has a point, but we should focus on teaching girls to work with each other rather than against each other. This situation is creating competition, not only between opposite genders, but also among girls.
The point of both organizations is to provide children and adolescents with a bit of friendly competition, and more importantly, to teach them how to work as a team.
The separation from the Girl Scouts is implying the girls cannot overlook their different interests and have, instead, decided not to deal with one another.
It makes sense that these five girls want to participate in activities more similar to the boys’, but that also doesn’t give them the right to criticize the activities that other girls are interested in, such as selling cookies or learning to sew.
It is also in no way fair to attack Boy Scouts about discrimination, when in reality they are simply trying to embrace boys’ quality time.
On the contrary, the Boy Scouts offer the coed program, Learning for Life, which allowed these five girls to participate in their activities without being formally considered scouts.
I am a believer that girls should be allowed to do the same things as boys and not be thought of as the weaker sex, but this doesn’t seem to me as a fight for equality. It rather appears more of an attempt to prove that girls can be stronger, not just equal.
This brings to light the worry of many parents of Boy Scouts. As The New York Times reported, parents feared that, since girls already outperform boys in several areas, they would take over the entire Boy Scouts program.
No one in this debate is saying girls cannot do the same tasks as boys can. If parents are so worried about the girls participating in activities that match their interests, they should petition for the Girl Scouts troops to add a wider variety of activities to the program.
Girl Scouts troops are just as capable of including lessons on how to light fires, how to set up a tent or how to do archery. All it takes is five girls willing to stand up and raise their voices for those with different interests and desires than the rest.
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