Last fall, Boy Scouts of America announced that it would be welcoming girls into their organization. Consequently, the Boy Scouts of America have announced that in February of 2019, it’s becoming Scouts BSA. However, keeping the ‘BSA’ in the title is a little confusing to me, because the name change was meant to be more inclusive. This means the organization is being changed to Scouts Boy Scouts of America. By keeping the ‘B’, the name still has the word ‘boy’ in the name. Personally, I find this quite contradictory. Although the parent organization is facing a name change, the younger age group, consisting of 7 to 10 year olds, will be keeping the name of Cub Scouts. This decision to admit girls into scouts was a controversial one, with many on both sides of the argument to admit girls into the organisation. The first age group to let girls into it was the Cub  Scouts. In the end, the Boy Scouts decided to allow girls into the Scouts.

Personally, I believe that this decision is not well founded and ruins the themes of Boy Scouts as a whole. Boy Scouts is an organization that focuses on skills centered around wildlife and have to pass requirements in physical fitness. On the other hand, Girl Scouts focuses on leadership, body positivity, and management skills. Although it makes sense that some girls would prefer to take part in an organization that specializes in things that are more nature oriented, this serves a problem in a more practical sense. Boy Scouts go on camping trips fairly frequently. What’s going to happen when there’s a troop of both males and females? In cases like these, I feel that is is okay to discriminate a little.

The claims of equality by those who advocate for the change are further undermined by the fact that Girl Scouts still isn’t open for boys. This proves a problem and isn’t really equal for boys who want to join girl scouts. In order to be truly equal, I believe that Girl Scouts should also be open for boys. Or, Boy Scouts shouldn’t have made the change in the first place.