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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Girl scouts need to be more inclusive of actual activities other than prepping for MLM sales.[/quote]

I feel like a lot of these criticisms are sort of sexist.  Like there's this attitude that if anything is traditionally female, it must suck and be inherently inferior.  
Here are some of the activities my GS troop did last year: ice skating; camping (cooking meals over fire); trip to Congress, meeting Congressional reps and later interviews with women who worked on the Hill on significant legislation; trip to NSA museum where learned how to write and break various codes; training on digital photography from a tech professional; geocaching; hiking; cooked a full dinner; planted garden at a local community center.

Camping and hiking are pretty much every year, but we've also done things like canoeing, trips to animal shelters, learning about seeing eye dogs, ziplining, and--gasp!--crafts such as jewelry making and making gifts for a local charity.

And, here's a suggestion for all you people complaining that GSs don't learn traditionally male skills like whittling (which, btw, isn't that just a craft??).  GET THE DADS INVOLVED.  I have a major pet peeve that all these dads will step up to volunteer for cub scouts and boy scouts, but don't volunteer to do ANYTHING for their daughters' girl scout troops.   The fact of the matter is that most moms don't know how to whittle.  No one ever taught us.  So if you're a dad that knows how to whittle, or how to fish, or WHATEVER SKILL YOU THINK THESE GIRLS SHOULD KNOW,   PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE -- email your daughter's troop leader and volunteer to lead a meeting teaching knot tying or whatever .  The GS leader will think you are the most awesome person in the universe for volunteering to do something.  We are desperate for help and know that the girls get tired of seeing our faces.

The only thing that's really necessarily different about cub scouts versus girl scouts is that:  (1) in cub scouts, the skills are MANDATORY for advancement...whereas in GS, nothing is really mandatory at all; and (2) in cub scouts, dads and moms both participate, whereas in Girl Scouts, it all falls on the moms.  The second thing is very easy to change, if dads would step up.  The first one, I think it's open to debate which is a better system.

P.S.  Dads that do volunteer can even get a cool Tshirt or badge that says "Man Enough to Be a Girl Scout."  The Girl Scouts really want you guys to help.  Really.  The only thing you can't do is sleep in a tent with girls that are not your daughter.  [/quote]

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