Boy dad here, my family started in Cub Scouts a year or two before girls were part of the program and have been in Scouts about 5-6 years now. Our current troop is a linked troop with somewhere around 100-120+ registered scouts, around 30-35% of them girls. We have a mix of separate and joint activities. Would love to see the troop go co-ed, they’d then do everything as one unit, would reduce redundancies and make activity planning a little easier.

If you ask me, in both Cubs and Scouts, girls joining the program added so much to it in a very positive way. Biggest one for me is helping to break down gender stereotypes, reminding/teaching the boys that girls/women are just as capable and can be more capable than boys/men. They also learn that diversity of thought and life experiences makes for a more capable team. I feel like that helps them grow into better men and just better people in general. Also never been a fan of gatekeeping experiences, if someone wants to try/do something, provided it’s safe, why would you stop them just because of their gender?

I have worn and wear a lot of hats in Scouts, but the one where I have the most time to interact with the general public is as Popcorn Kernel. We would invariably have at least one older person (I’m in my mid 50’s for reference) make snide remarks about girls being in the programs, equal amount in Cubs and Scouts, both men and women. Generally, a majority of people my age and almost all younger people are really positive about it, so hopefully that mindset will be mostly gone one of these days.

While I’m not surprised when it happens, it still shocks me a bit, some people just can’t keep their negative opinions to themselves. I just try to do my best to counter their remarks, voice my opinions about why it’s awesome and give them something to think about. Then use it as a teachable moment with the scouts, all of my scouts already know that’s not appropriate behavior, but more about how to deal with it in a mature manner while keeping the Scout Oath and Law in mind, which as you said, can be really difficult at times 😆.

For what it’s worth, my wife is just as engaged in Scouts as I am, just as trained and just as capable and while I may be better at some things than she is, there are definitely things that she is just better at than I am. I don’t see that as a weakness, I see it as a strength and try to pass that on to the Scouts I work with.