Homosexual Boy Scouts? What About Gay Girl Scouts???

This week's reading made me think a lot about the inequalities between men and women I see everyday. I mostly thought about myself and other people I know who either follow the norm or who don't, and how they are treated differently. Something I never really thought of was the gay community and how I have seen in the past that gay men and lesbian women are treated differently. Although neither are widely accepted, I have definitely seen that more lesbians are accepted than gay men, which made me want to do a little more research on that topic. Although not directly related to the topic, I found a letter to the editor for the LA Times about the Boy Scouts being allowed to involve gay leaders and members. Thus far, it has not been allowed to have gay members.

Besides the obvious importance of this article, I thought it was very interesting that there is nothing similar for Girl Scouts. There has been nothing in the news (to my knowledge) about anything concerning lesbians in Girl Scouts, and if there has, it definitely hasn't gotten the same amount of coverage. Boy Scouts are outdoorsy, manly, and like to do "manly" things, which is why I would assume gays, who would, according to the stereotype, not be those things, wouldn't be allowed in. The girl scouts are about being caring and helping others, which is I would think lesbians would be more accepted in that group than gays in Boy Scouts.

Again, my thoughts on this topic don't directly relate to this article, but it has bothered me that gay women seem to be more accepted than men, and the idea of this article demonstrated my thoughts. A woman was involved in this, but not about Girl Scouts, just about wanting to help her son. It shows inequality for men, specifically gay men. The Boy Scouts, as a whole, is meant to create "principled young men", according to the article, but all this is teaching them is inequality for certain men. A principled young man does not have to be straight, like the outdoors, or be manly. The Girl Scouts was made to do the same thing; make well-rounded women, and yet, lesbians are allowed to be involved. The difference in the gender treatment on this topic definitely caught my attention, and I wish there was more about it.

(http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-gay-scouting-20120613,0,7381538.story)


Elizabeth Kramer