Worlds apart? Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts

Here’s the background: my husband is a Boy Scout scoutmaster (well, assistant scoutmaster). They leadership team has been talking about adding a “Venture Crew” — a coed program for teens — to combat the attrition once the boys reach high school, and thought that the natural set of girl recruits would be Girl Scouts entering high school, but who are interested in continuing scouting in a different way than more Girl Scouts, but his initial feelers to Girl Scout leaders weren’t well-received.

So I went online. Could a Venture Crew be an alternative to Girl Scouts for girls who don’t have a high school-level troop to join, or could a Boy Scout and Girl Scout troop join forces?

Boy Scouts is all about the camping, or outings in general. As my husband says, “75% of Scouting is Outing.” And an active Venture Crew is likewise, though it may not always be camping but other kids of “adventure,” as they label it. To earn Boy Scout ranks, a boy needs to have demonstrated various outdoor skills — knot-tying, camping, swimming, plant-identification, etc. But Girl Scouts? From what my facebook friends post, there are plenty of outings, but this is much more optional, and depending on the individual troop leader’s initiative. Actual advancements? Badges seem to have fallen by the wayside, and replaced by “journeys,” which seem to be a set of activities having to do with single topic, such as environmentalism or community change or girl-empowerment, meant to be worked on over a dozen or so meetings. And the capstone, Eagle rank-equivalent is a 80-hour girl-initiated and run project, which is substantial but very one-dimensional and doesn’t require the diversity of skills of the Eagle rank.

So that leaves me thinking that Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are really quite different — and wondering: do the majority of Girl Scout troops include camping even though the official curriculum doesn’t? Or is that the exception, and for the most part, Girl Scouts is a completely different program, focused on girl-empowerment and cookie selling?

(Oh, and don’t get me started on cookie-selling! Yes, Cub Scouts sell popcorn, and our Boy Scout troop, at least, sells wreaths, but isn’t it a bit odd for cookie-selling to be such a major part of Girl Scout indentity?)