To be fair, in this particular case I can see how it might come across as special treatment, since the camp brochure lists 1) no all-male programs; 2) no options for boys that are focused on those specific activities; and 3) no options that are open to male 16-year-olds (the cutoff age for all of the other programs is 15 or lower). So if I were a 16-year-old guy who really wanted to learn archery and car maintenance, I might be a little annoyed. But as a general concept, no, I don’t think all-boys or all-girls summer programs are a problem, especially if they’re aimed at kids with non-gender-stereotypical interests, who might appreciate having a little space where they don’t stand out as unusual.
Me neither.
As for girls not being into video games, several years ago, my nieces signed up for a summer day camp for video game programming that was offered through the city rec department for kids 10-14. Out of 20 or 25 in the class, they were the only girls. 
Education is tailored to the wide center of the bell curve – to impart the largest amount of education to the largest number of children. Whether it should be is is not the scope of this thread.
The question is, should all girls be subjected to obligatory BB-Gun 101, or should such be left as an extracurricular for those who exercise such a bent?
In my view, the school has the mandate to produce educated people safe to follow their own star. Let the kids choose their star, using Girls Camp if it helps girls to choose one consistent with the gender identity they have chosen for themselves.;.
What little I got, I learned in class, same as most of the boys (Santi being the exception, as his dad was an auto mechanic).
This.
When did you attend a GS meeting? :dubious:
Girl Scouts never taught me anything like that – quite the contrary! If anything, they’re much more well-rounded than the Boy Scouts, who seem mainly interested in camping and other out-door activities. I remember camping, yes, but also going to museums, biking, swimming, putting on plays, learning to cook, dancing, arts and crafts, learning about the political process (one of my troop leaders was the wife of former PA governor Tom Corbett. I remember him coming to a meeting and telling us what it was like to work on the campaign trail).
Girl Scouts was a lot of fun.
Well not totally.
If the motives behind the persons running the camp are to tell girls that they cannot learn to fix cars or shoot bb guns unless they are only around other girls, and to tell them they are being discriminated, yeah, thats not toally market driven.
And the thing is their is a HUGE market for this “all-girl” stuff. Granted, not as much as back in the day of “Take your daughter to work day” (what an insult that was).
So.
The point was they took the class and had to learn to work alongside the boys and the boys had to work alongside them. Isnt that how the real world operates?
Would it have been better to have a girls only class in programming?
No they dont.
To check yourself here is the entire camp guide.
That’s a pretty big “if”.
To promote true equality, the “adventurous stuff for girls” camps should be balanced out by a couple of “girly arty crafty stuff for boys” camps. Give both sexes a little extra push towards activities that are traditionally seen as ‘not of their gender’.
(I bet there’s not much sex-diversity in the uptake of ‘fairy princess dance club for preschoolers’ on the front page)
But looking at that particular brochure … there’s about eighteen pages worth of classes, of which exactly two are girl-specific - that doesn’t seem out of line to me. And it really is true that, even now, boys and girls are still socialised into liking ‘boy things’ and ‘girl things’ to some extent - though not quite so much as in earlier eras.
The ‘adventureous things for girls’ style camps can function as a kind of gateway - having done that kind of stuff once, the girls would be more open to going to similar activities that aren’t girl-targeted - because they’ve already crossed the ‘hey I CAN do this kind of thing’ threshold.
My Cadette troop went to the American Cancer Society one evening where we watched a film (nowadays of course, it would be a DVD or podcast) about women’s health care, and also models of breasts with lumps in them so we could learn about self-examination. I don’t think they mentioned birth control, but that would have been outside their territory anyway. Many people have said to me, “I was in the Girl Scouts and we never did anything like that.”
What a troop does has a lot to do with the leaders’ personal experiences. Cancer was a very personal issue for them, because before I met them, they had lost a child to cancer. 
And of course, the thing I remember most was a girl palpating the model and saying, “Can you imagine how many of these we could sell to the boys at school?” 
:smack:
IDK if the ACS had, or has, similar programs to educate young boys about testicular cancer. I’m guessing they probably do; cervical and breast cancer are very rare in teens and young women, whereas testicular cancer is most common in that age group.
It had nothing to do with sexism, and my brother and SIL are not the kind of people who view every male as a potential predator. My point is that here were these siblings who happened to be the only girls there.
They had a a great time anyway.
As we all know, the Boy Scouts have come under fire for not allowing open gays or atheists to join or otherwise participate. :mad: I had wondered what the Girl Scouts’ stance was on lesbians, and it’s this: They don’t have one. 
In addition, unless an event is explicitly females only, men can attend as long as there is an adult woman present.
Looking back, I had wondered about that because my dad and I participated in several father/daughter events, one of them a weekend camping trip. Don’t remember women being there, but then again, at that age I didn’t pay attention to things like that.
I was in Girl Scouts too. My troop didn’t do anything fun, and I think it’s because we were based out of the crazy-ass church I attended. We did the obligatory trip to the nursing home, which always freaked me out. I remember doing one activity that involved me being coaxed into eating olives. But we didn’t learn how to fix anyone’s car. We just sang songs. It was a colossal waste of time.
Speaking as a life long tomboy and a woman who has worked in such traditional male industries like construction…
(Yes, another dissertation)
Yes, sometimes we do. A chronic problem I’ve had in my life, being significantly shorter than probably 80% or more of men in the world, is that occasionally while pursuing various endeavors I have been physically pushed out of the way by guys also pursuing said endeavors. This isn’t necessarily malice - they guys got all excited, too, and simply pushed me out of the way by being taller and heavier and stronger. (Sometimes it’s malice, but that’s rare)
There’s also still stereotypes - one time when I was indoor flying a man came up and started yelling at me to get back from the flight line, it was for pilots only and not girlfriends. Several other guys who knew me as a regular (bless 'em) told the guy that the “don’t talk to the pilots when they’re flying” rule at the venue applied to female pilots as well as the male ones - basically, STFU she’s a flyer, too. Again, rare - although the reaction of the other guys was absolutely what was needed.
Sometimes, it’s as stupid a matter as no one thinking to unlock the ladies room at the venue where some activity is taking place. Seriously, more than once I’ve had to use the men’s room because the assumption no girls would be there, so why open the ladies restroom? Me, I’ll boot the guys out for the 2 minutes I need to pee (hell, on jobsites I learned to pee in a fast-food soft drink cup and deal with the monthlies without flush toilets around, commandeering the little boys room is nothing), but not every women is so assertive, quite a few simply wouldn’t show up.
So yes, I think that having a lesson on car mechanics in a setting where I won’t be shoved (accidently or otherwise) out of the way, won’t have to deal with some asshat making jokes about women’s abilities or lack thereof, and have a comfortable place to piss if the need arises is quite welcome. Now, if you can provide all that in a mixed-gender setting even better but the reality is that sometimes you can’t.
(An example where mixed-gender classes have worked in my life is the fork lift training at my place of work - the guy running it doesn’t tolerate bullshit and will quickly point out to any male troglodyte that 3/4 of the forklift operators at the store are female so keep in mind when he’s “joking” he’s outnumbered 3:1 and some of those ladies can run circles around any trainee, and there are ladies rooms available)
I’ll also point out that “female friendly” may also include things like step stools so we can reach things. One problem I occasionally encountered during my stint in construction is that my hands are physically smaller than most men’s so some things were more difficult for me to grip or manipulate. (Left handers can also have issues with tools) Surmountable problems, but addressing such issues would be part of a well-run and comprehensive program. You can find smaller gloves, tool grips, and left-handed versions of many things these days but it’s not always immediately obvious where to find them, so a class that points these things out is helpful.
Huge deal, all of that? Maybe or maybe not, depends on context. But to actually level the playing field for girls you have to take these things into account.
On the flip side, over the past couple of decades there has been an increase in things like needle-work patterns intended to appeal to men - it’s a combination of the men involved in those hobbies demanding it, and people involved trying to attract men. Not a lot of men want to stitch “Hello Kitty” items, but cars and camo patterns seem to attract their eye. It’s not a fair playing field for men in the needle arts if there are no patterns or projects to reflect their other interests and hobbies. And, likewise, there are adaptive handles that make it easier for people with large hands (or arthritic ones) to grip the necessary tools of the trade. Of course, our society doesn’t support men who want to knit as enthusiastically as they support girls who want to fix cars - and more’s the pity (Indeed, I’ve encountered some extremely hostile female crafts who treat a man like a murder of crows treat hawk - they gang up them, it’s disgusting. One of the reasons I like my current Stitch N Bitch is that it is genuinely welcoming to men). It’s just the first example that came to mind where a boy-only class might be beneficial to men with an interest in the activity. In a male-only crafting class you might have not only traditional patterns but ones for more stereotypical male interests, larger or larger-handled tools, an open rest room for men (yes, I’ve seen situations were no one bothered to open that one - and a man using a ladies room can raise issues), and so forth.
Finally, there are some situations where gender matters, again, usually do to a size/strength issue. When my spouse was teaching people to play bagpipes he usually had to work a bit more with men on dexterity issues and a bit more with women on endurance issues - because men generally do start out with more lung power and will build strength faster, and women, on average, have an advantage on fine manual dexterity. The exceptions were invariably men and women who had significant wind instrument playing in their background where the men already had better developed dexterity and the women had greater than usual lung power due to past activities.
Much as I’d like to say the world is gender-neutral it’s not. And given some of the physical realities (like size differences) it may never be. Being fair isn’t a matter of treating everyone exactly alike, being fair means giving people equal opportunities with minimal obstacles.
Excellent post, plus one, like, ect.
Aren’t most communities pretty well served by the Boy Scouts? Girls don’t really have the same thing. Girl Scouts is great, but it covers different ground.
Typical reasoning I hear about gender specific courses such as these is they are trying to entice girls using a method where the girls will not feel as embarrassed or intimidated if boys were around. A self defense course will also play into the teenage body development and “being comfortable with my body” issues as well as physical strength and / or modesty. That said my daughter in this targeted age bracket prefers the co-ed soccer offered at school over the gender divided programs offered by the local clubs.
See, I think the solution could be a lot simpler. Back in the 1980’s, the girls were watching My Little Pony and the boys were studying. Now, the boys are the ones watching My Little Pony and the girls have nothing better to do than study.