Why I Care About Equality for Girl Scouts
For as long as I can remember, I have been confident in my ability to plan proactively, to execute tasks well, and to lead. Although that’s due to a lot of different influences, the biggest influence for me growing up was Girl Scouts. I have been mulling over the announcement made a few weeks ago by the Boy Scouts of America that girls will be welcome to join their ranks.
I am always for being inclusive, but in this case it has less to do with finally recognizing the equlity of boys and girls and more to do with the organization’s dwindling participant base. I’m not particularly worried about Girl Scouts losing potential members. The value of their programming is so widely recognized that girls will still want to be involved. I worry more about the amplification of a message that I’ve come across, mostly non-verbally, since I first became a Girl Scout almost twenty years ago. Someone at some point in time decided that the Girl Scout Gold Award is lesser than the Eagle Scout status within Boy Scouts. All the way from middle school through the end of my years in Girl Scouts I faced that message. And not only is it false, getting the Gold Award is an equally time-intensive process, but it can be argued the requirements for girls before they even begin are more rigorous.
This is so comparable to what women face in their careers. That when you do equal work to that of a man, or in some cases even more, your work will still be valued less. That you will be valued less. Girl Scouts was a safe space for me to cultivate leadership and analytical skills, and I know that the confidence I gained from planning and implementing a large-scale project successfully so early in life has been invaluable. An equally important lesson has been how disheartening it can be to learn how little that means to many people.
I’m really interested in seeing how this whole thing plays out, but in the meantime I will keep volunteering my time with Girl Scouts and promoting their program. I will also advocating for recognition of the hard work girls have been doing over the years.
