Now that girls are joining the Boy Scouts, the organization has quite reasonably changed its name accordingly.<\/b>
\nUSA Today (\u201c Boy Scouts are dropping the word \u2018boy\u2019 from the name of flagship program \u201c):
The Boy Scouts of America doubled down Wednesday on its quest to become the scouting organization of choice for boys and girls, announcing it will drop \u201cBoy\u201d from the name of its signature program.
Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh also unveiled the group\u2019s new \u201cScout Me In\u201d marketing campaign aimed at promoting inclusiveness.
\u201cAs we enter a new era for our organization, it is important that all youth can see themselves in Scouting in every way possible,\u201d Saurbaugh said.
The umbrella organization will retain its name, Boy Scouts of America or BSA. The term Cub Scouts, for kids 7-10 years old, is gender neutral and also will go unchanged. Boy Scouts, which includes kids from 10 to 17, will become Scouts BSA in February.
Change has been coming quickly to the iconic if shrinking organization. In October, it announced it would provide programs for girls. Several months before that, the group announced it would accept and register transgender youths into its organization.
In 2015, it ended its ban on gay leaders.
Cub Scouts will formally accept girls starting this summer. But Saurbaugh said more than 3,000 girls nationwide already enrolled in the BSA\u2019s Early Adopter Program and are participating in Cub Scouts ahead of the full launch.
Allowing girls into the organization allows busy families to consolidate programs for their kids, BSA says. Most of the actual Cub packs and Scout troops, however, will be single gender.
\u201cCub Scouts is a lot of fun, and now it\u2019s available to all kids,\u201d said Stephen Medlicott, BSA marketing director. \u201cThat\u2019s why we love \u2018Scout Me In\u2019 \u2014 because it speaks to girls and boys and tells them, \u2018This is for you. We want you to join!’\u201d
Boy Scouts of America claims almost 2.3 million members, down from 2.6 million five years ago. That includes Venturing and Sea Scouting programs, the latter allows membership up to 21 years of age. In its peak years, Boy Scout of America had more than 4 million participants.
There\u2019s no official announcement, oddly, at the organization\u2019s website \u2014which, incidentally, is simply Scouting.org.
But this was a logical step. The umbrella organization doesn\u2019t change its name but that really doesn\u2019t have much impact. All of the individual programs except this one already had gender-neutral names:
Indeed, it\u2019s worth noting that Venturing, Sea Scouting, and Exploring have always been co-ed. So, dropping \u201cBoy\u201d from the program name will have next to no impact. One wonders whether when \u201cBoy Scouts of America\u201d will disappear from the uniform in favor of simply \u201cScouting\u201d or \u201cBSA.\u201d (I do think it\u2019s a matter of when not if .)
The next logical move, I suppose, is for the two scouting organizations, which oddly have nothing to do with one another, to merge. It won\u2019t happen any time soon. The Girl Scouts have a mission that all but precludes going co-ed and they have been very hostile to this move:
The Girl Scouts of the U. S. A. has been vocal in its opposition. Girl Scouts president Kathy Hopinkah Hannan wrote to BSA in August, two months before BSA announced it would accept girls, asking the BSA board to refrain from recruiting girls.
\u201cOur experiences are created for and with girls,\u201d said Andrea Bastiani Archibald, the Girl Scouts\u2019 Chief Girl and Family Engagement Officer. \u201cI think that\u2019s important when we consider what appeals to them and what benefits them most.\u201d
Girl Scouts, founded two years after Boy Scouts, currently claim a membership of about 1.8 million. The organization is developing their own campaign to recruit and retain girls. Last month it unveiled a LinkedIn network aimed tapping a major resource \u2014 the group\u2019s 50 million alums.
The goal of the network is \u201cto support female advancement in the workforce and help prepare girls for a lifetime of leadership and career success.\u201d
The overall impact of the BSA\u2019s policy change on Girl Scouts membership won\u2019t be known any time soon. But one regional leader, Fiona Cummings of Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois, told the Associated Press the BSA\u2019s decision to admit girls is among the factors that have shrunk her council\u2019s youth membership by more than 500 girls so far this year.
She said relations with the Boy Scouts in her region used to be collaborative and now are \u201cvery chilly.\u201d
My girls, both of whom started with Daisies in kindergarten and continue on, are not likely to switch over. Still, Girl Scouts may have to up their game in terms of pushing for more outdoor adventure, especially in the Daisy and Brownie years, to keep girls from going over to the BSA.<\/p>\n

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