After Boy Scouts, what’s next?

The Boy Scouts have now officially announced their name change to Scouting America after 114 years. At a time when young men are receiving the overwhelming message that masculinity is toxic and patriarchy is evil, it’s sad an organization which once stressed responsibility and preparedness is no longer a uniquely male space.

This change has been anticipated for quite a while as the organization has been taking large steps to distance itself from their original Christian, boys-only brand.

Five years ago the decision was made to allow girls to join Boy Scout Troops — much to the dismay of The Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts even launched a lawsuit against the Boy Scouts claiming that the Boy Scouts caused marketplace confusion and damaged their recruitment efforts by using words like “scouts” and “scouting” in recruitment drives. Even though a judge rejected the lawsuit, a message was clearly sent that the youth organizations are no longer complementary — they are competition.

Roger A. Krone, president and chief executive of the forthcoming Scouting America, said in a statement, “This will be a simple but very important evolution as we seek to ensure that everyone feels welcome in Scouting.” Creating an organization that is more intentionally targeting and welcoming members who are specifically not boys has clearly been a goal the Boy Scouts has been moving toward for some time.

The Boy Scouts ended its ban on openly gay scouts in 2013 and its ban on gay troop leaders in 2015. Two years later, the organization announced it would allow transgender boys in. This name change is the next logical step to signal that all remaining barriers maintaining a space only for boys have decidedly fallen.

I’m sympathetic to girls who want to join Boy Scouts. I was a Girl Scout, and although going to Camp Little Cloud in Epworth during the summer was a great, formative experience, there wasn’t much the troop had to offer during the school year outside of cookie sales.

However, the remedy for lackluster Girl Scout troops isn't to eliminate activities specifically designated for boys and girls. Instead, the solution lies in enriching these activities to better serve the girls participating in them.

Creating more opportunities to celebrate the differences between men and women should be the task at hand, rather than ignoring differences between the sexes. Being a girl is uniquely good and special, just as being a boy is uniquely good and special.

This is possibly the worst time for a boy’s only organization to dissolve considering that boys are falling well behind on test scores compared to girls, and young men are attending college at lower rates than women. Shedding more light on the problems facing men and boys is the ever growing list of academic articles and books. Just to name a few from recent years: The War Against Boys, The Boy Crisis, Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis, and Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. People, and apparently book publishers, are noticing the appetite for improved boys' education.

Hopefully other youth focused organizations will fill the gap in young men’s education. Perhaps The Boys Scout organization, with their many sexual abuse scandals, does deserve to die away and be replaced by more localized organizations seeking to solve the problems of our time.

We should all “Be prepared,” and rise to the challenge of communicating to our sons, brothers, and grandsons that masculinity in its many expressions can be good, protective and is something worth cultivating.

Patricia Patnode is from Waterloo and graduated from Loras College This first appeared in the American Mind.