Troop 3-394, represent!

I loved Girl Scouts, but most of all, I loved Girl Scout Camp. What incredible fun!

Troop 1110 represent!

With that said, one of my troop leaders was an absolute Nazi, but thank the Lord my mother was the other leader. We had a really great troop and I loved the Girl Scout camps.

I would even say it was one of my first feminist experiences too.

One of my leaders died (asphyiated on her own vomit while home with the flu) so that was kind of traumatic for our troop... a few years later, the other troop leader (I have no idea if she was still involved with the GS at that point) had become a mail-order minister and was convicted of embezzling like, hundreds of thousands of dollars from an elderly person she was supposedly helping...
Didn't the girl scouts fire the director for being an out lesbian? Or am I way off base?

As I get older I realize just what a special organization the Girl Scouts really was. It really was about training girls to be wholly realized women. But as a disclaimer, it really did depend on what troop you were in. I remember that we would often spend time with another troop that was more concerned with gossip and boys than actual scouting. They annoyed the hell out of us.

The friendships that I made during the scouts were so important, especially during middle school when everything seemed to change. Looking back on it, the only times that I really felt like I could be myself during that time was with the Scouts.

I had so many great experiences, it's hard to pick out one. So here's a quick list of things of awesome things I did/learned as a Girl Scout:

-went camping often(something my family never did)
-hiked the Appalachian trail
-stayed overnight on a retired aircraft carrier
-learned basic car maintenance (unfortunately it was too much before I was driving, so I forgot most of it)
-canoed on the C&O canal
-learned about women's history
-visited many historic sites and battlefields
-Plus, if it wasn't for selling cookies, I don't think I would have met many of my neighbors.

I was never a Girl Scout. I punched a Girl Scouts in the face once. Awful, I know, I was pretty terrible. I didn't have an understanding of the impact of violence then.

Now.... I'm a Girl Scouts mom and co-leader.

Minneapolis Troop 1631 Represent!

We do things like go to Intermedia Arts (an amazing art social justice organization) in Minneapolis. Intermedia is the largest legal graf wall in the Cities (and the site of B-Girl Be: Celebration of Women in Hip Hop). After that workshop one of the girls did a school report on female graf artists.

Last meeting we had a workshop with amazing hip-hop poet Desdamona.

Now I know that Girl Scouts Rock!

I didn't make it to GS...our Brownie troop was making shit out of macaroni and lacquer one day (as we always seemed to do) and I asked, "when do we get to go camping?" The reply? "Oh, only the boys do THAT." I left shortly afterwards.

It's funny, some friends and I were talking at brunch on Sunday about doing an activist summer camp for kids.

Teach them about non-hierarchical, decentralized collective decision making, community organizing, history of activism and movements, and all sorts of stuff. I'm not certain if it'll actually get off the ground, but I definitely think its a great idea.

I'm a Lifetime Girl Scout. I went from a Daisy to a Gold Awardee over the course of my youth. All my experiences were positive. I just remember them teaching us to be whole women, and to give to others because it made our world a better place.

I only have two complaints. I earned the Gold Award, the top award in all of Girl Scouting. It's on the very level of the Boy Scouts' Eagle Scout (which my boyfriend earned). No one knows what the Gold Award is, and I keep having to explain that it's on par with the Eagle Scout, but no one really sees it in that light.

I also have huge qualms with Studio 2B, as I see it teaches materialism (since badges are replaced with charms for a charm bracelet) and selfishness as very few of it's programs include reaching out to the community in service.

Our girlscout troop didn't do many interesting things. We went rollerskating, swimming, did WAY too many useless crafts and cooking. I think it had more to do with the mothers running it. One of my kids wanted to join girlscouts but I am a little reluctant. The boy scouts have a religious bent and we have had many afterschool activities that had underlying ministries to them they didn't mention up front. I don't think girl scouts ever had any religious component but I still worry about some religious idealoge using it as a way to indoctrinate kids.

I think we need more feminist style groups to work with girls up through high school.

I left girl scounts after 6th grade, after I had gone to a winter snow camp where we spent the entire weekend doing crafts indoors, even though it was beautiful weather with snow on the ground. I wanted to be doing all sorts of outdoor physical activities like the boy scouts. I think the troop I was in did go on one backpacking trip a couple years later. But that's nothing compared to the boy scouts -- my brother was a boy scout and starting backpacking in 5th grade, and continued to do so with his troop regularly throughout high school.

And I do love crafts -- but I didn't need to go to a winter snow camp to do them, I was perfectly capable of doing crafts on my own at home. Girl scouts did not provide all the opportunities for rigorous outdoor activity and survival skills that I was hoping for (and that boy scouts did).

I was a Girl Guide -- much the same thing. In Canada, there's Scouting (boys and girls), and Guiding (no boys allowed!).

Guiding in my town was far less outdoorsy, oriented to more traditionally feminine pursuits -- planning potlucks, camp cooking, working with younger kids, and crafty stuff. I wish I'd had a more adventurous experience, but on the bright side, I can sew a mean quilt.

I was a Girl Scout AND a Girl Guide (we vacationed in Canada and for a couple of years I would go on camping trips with a troop up there) but dropped out around 12 because we moved and couldn't find a new troop that easily.

I enjoyed it a lot and my troop had good leaders, one of them eventually being my mom. I did feel jealous of my brother's boy scout camp, like many here. He got to go swimming in a lake and shoot things, we got a pool and dodgeball. But I was also one of the first girls to go to the Rock Climbing and Spelunking sleep-away camp and now my younger sister is counting the days until she can. I did have fun with the scouts though, and think it's a valuble experience if you can find a good leader.

The leader totally makes all the difference. I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing until my dad became a leader. He brought all his experience from being in Boy Scouts and looked through the badge books to find the most fun and useful stuff to do. Yes, we did camp cooking and sewing, but we also all became certified in first aid and CPR, learned how to use knives, axes, and other "survival" tools, built furniture, did all the science badges, and did tons of community service.

I quit later--with my parents' approval--when my junior's leader (he was a brownie guy) brought a MaryKay rep to the meeting. Not that MaryKay is particularly evil, but why teach 13-year-olds about makeup as if it were a life skill?

I was JUST thinking about starting a progressive scouts of some kind. Like a little factory for feminist progressives. I'm glad other folks are thinking about this!

My experience in the boy scouts varied: we had a few abusively authoritarian leaders, but it's probably where I got the love of being outside that keeps me sane to this day.

Girlscouts gives more money per box of cookies sold to the troops of more affluent (and whiter) counties in Wisconsin. I only know this because when I was in girlscouts my mom would speak to other mothers who weren't from Milwaukee County.

Also, someone had taken a picture of my mom when she was volunteering at my elementary school and later this picture showed up in girlscout literature showing what great things they were doing. This activity was not done in conjunction with girlscouts, but they sure tried to use it to their credit.

Dishonesty and institutionalized racism are what I think of when I see that logo.

We went caving when I was a Girl Guide! It started my love affair with bats.

i was in brownies until i was eight - my mum was a troop leader. We did everything from have massive pot-lucks/sleepovers, learnt to sew, and then built rope bridges and learnt to build camp fires. I just remember it being great fun.

I changed schools after than and there was no need for scouts. Boys and girls learnt to sew and climb trees equally.

Unfortunately, my experience of the Brownies and later (and worse) the Girl Guides was not brilliant. I met a couple of friends, sure, but the general tone was condescending - we were given 'girly' activities (endless salt-dough models, sewing) whilst I listened to my brother's tales of knot tying, fun games, field trip etc. with the Cubs and Scouts. Our pack holiday was a weekend in a Brownie house with all the afternoon naps and graces before mealtimes you could ask for, and the the leaders were killjoys. (Apparently, 'blooming' is a very unladylike word.) The guide camp was uneventful, the only interesting part was my learning to walk on stilts. The rest was grace-before-meal*, don't go to your friends tents, we're going for a walk. Don't laugh, smile, run, jog, jump or anything. Back at hoem, the activites of tea/coffee mornings and sewing things of apparently no use whatsoever eventually drove me to quit. I wish I gone into the Scouts, as they'd started letting girls in. They actually did stuff when they had trips. Like learning to windsurf IN FRANCE.

*That's right. It was very Christian despite the presence of many faiths and a predominantly agnostic/atheistic group.

I wouldn't have minded the sewing, but we didn't actually sew anything recognisable. We were taught to make bits of tights stuffed with cotton wool, and to stitch on a badge. Nothing more.

I was a Girl Scout until the 6th grade. My dad was in the Air Force and we were stationed in Japan at the time.

I remember we had a U.S. Girl Scout/Japan Girl Guides Jamboree with several American and Japanese groups. We had races and played games. It was so much fun! One thing that sticks out in my mind was my GS leader telling us that we had to bring slippers to wear inside the gym because of Japanese custom. I had a pair of cute little ballet-type slippers, and my leader had big, fuzzy pink slippers!

Then, there was the time we went for an overnight camping trip with a couple of other troops. We divided into groups and each group had to build their own tent. My group's tent was twisted and lopsided, and the other girls ambushed us that night to try and spook us! We shrieked and screamed, but we had a blast! Also, the next morning, our troop made pancakes, eggs, and bacon over the campire, while the other troop had cereal!

Another cool thing about being a GS, is that we made the Boy Scouts jealous! During that time, my dad was also driving a coach bus part-time. Whenever my troop had a trip planned, my dad would drive us in his huge, comfortable coach bus. He told me how he would listen to the Boy Scout dads in his squadron whine about how they can never get any transportation like the Girls. When they found out that my dad was the culprit, they beged him to help them out. My dad told them only if his girls didn't need him first! ^_^

The only reason I even quit scouting was because my 6th grade troop leader didn't put any effort into - well, leading. Once I get in a position where I'm comfortable taking on something else, I'd be more than willing to be a GS leader or volunteer.

Did anyone ever get a patch for patch forgery?

Also, someone had taken a picture of my mom when she was volunteering at my elementary school and later this picture showed up in girlscout literature showing what great things they were doing. This activity was not done in conjunction with girlscouts, but they sure tried to use it to their credit.

Weird. When my sister was in a "bed race" one year, her picture was in the paper next to the story about the race. A few years later I see the same picture, but it's used to advertise a different race.

Feminist Bootcamp Name? Roni's Femininst Bootcamp. ;)

As for Girl Scouts...they weren't hip when I was in them, but they rocked hard. I'm lucky to get to work with them in my day job from time to time. And of course, supporting them thru eating cookies.

Anybody remember that episode of Ren & Stimpy when they joined a Girl Scouts-like organization? Rosie O'Donnell did a guest voice as one of the girls. Ren gambled all of their badges away.

The leaders change everything. I didn't join until I was Brownie aged and my mom was co-leader of my sister's troupe. My troupe did a lot of camping and outdoor stuff. We also painted store fronts for the holidays and volunteered and stuff. I wouldn't say we earned the most useful badges, but at least for a while it was fun. My mom and sister didn't do quite as much outdoors. The Brownies also hosted a Father/Daughter Dinner Dance, my dad and Pop took me and my sister, and I still have the pictures. It was a fun way to have an awards ceremony.

We moved shortly after I became a Junior, and my new troupe totally didn't do it for me. We painted pottery one night, didn't do any camping or volunteering, and I also quit shortly after a Mary Kay party. I was not ready for make up yet and insulted on several levels. First, they were pushing me into their ideas of what's ladylike and what girls like. Second, they were pushing what I consider high priced products on adolescent girls. I don't recall actually earning any badges that year, as I think it was encouraged for us to do on our own. My sister was unable to fit into a troupe after we moved too, and my mother tried to get involved, but some moms got a power trip, ya know?

I am still jealous of my brother's experience in Boy Scouts. He learned everything, and got to do EVERYTHING. He also got the support of both my parents, and I think that's partly due to my dad living so vicariously through him. My brother got pushed through so hard that he made Eagle Scout about 2 years before it's usually expected. I do think it's way cool he got his award and all, he worked hard enough for it.

I'll agree with the people who said it was all about the leader- mine were pretty blah and all I remember learning was to call 911 (we were 9, I already knew) and to paint our fingernails. I was a really outdoorsy kid, and thought this was ridiculous, so I bailed. My parents sent us to camp in Vermont instead, hippy feminist camp where I got to learn real skills and feel smart and strong. But I do wish I had had a better troop leader- I'm jealous of friends who were in the same troop from Daisys through high school.

i'm with jane. except we were making stamps from potatos or something. then i remember some girls at the time trying to join the boy scouts for that reason and my mother getting her panties in a wad over it. i just sat there thinking: i want to join the boy scouts too!

Incidentally, I hated camping with the Scouts as the leaders other than my dad were not into it. I learned MUCH more about being outdoorsy, confident, independent, and even feminist at the liberal Lutheran camp I attended and later worked for in high school and college.

I think an all-girl group can be awesomely empowering or just institutionalize "ladylike" behavior, depending on the leader. I also think that coed sleepaway camp (like the one I had) rocks because the cabins are single sex but there is still interaction that teaches everyone to work together with and respect people, including people of the opposite sex. Then again, I had a uniquely positive experience and I can see it going badly with different leaders, just like Girl Scouts.

A couple other people mentioned a progressive/feminist version of GS, that would be FABULOUS. Someone REALLY needs to do that. I think it would be more popular than we might initially think. As long as the wing nuts have Jesus camp, couldn't we have something???

In first grade, we had a girl at our lunch table named Genny who was in the Brownies and would sometimes be wearing her Brownie uniform at school.

Every once in a while, they'd serve brownies with lunch. So every time we had brownies, we would look at Genny and say, "HEY GENNY!" while pointedly eating our brownies.

It never got old.

... that is my constructive addition to this thread.

I was a GS until I was 15 and moved from Dallas to a part of Atlanta where there were no GS troops nearby.

In middle school, I was part of an awesome troop with a completely awesome leader. We learned (among many other things): first aid/cpr, how to camp (even in below-freezing temps)/build fires & dig latrines & cook outdoors/take pics and develop b&w film/plan and budget for a business and the list goes on and on... we took trips, we did volunteer work, we did crafts. Yes, we did have a visit from a Mary Kay lady (at the time, I welcomed the class since I wasn't allowed to wear makeup & wanted to) and we learned how to quill and do other crafts, but I also learned many other skills I keep to this day.

I think that my girl scout troop experiences are a major reason that I feel capable and strong and unconfined by "traditional" female roles. This despite the fact that our leader was a very traditional, Republican housewife. I never, ever wanted to be a Boy Scout... I think the GS experience is what the leader and the Girl Scout make it.

Oh man do I love Girl Scouts. For the skills, the community, the ideas, and the awesome feminist role models I was exposed to. My local council's tagline was "Where girls grow strong." and they actually meant it.
I blame most of the old school gendery junk on the fact that there are too many stretched-for-time-and-resources mothers leading troops. It is way easier to throw out some craft materials than to teach the gals how to build and paint furniture.
In other words, this is me begging the feminist blogosphere to give a few hours or more to run a workshop,teach something, or lead a group. Contact your local council and tell them you have skillz. I absolutely love making Girl Scouts more empowerful. If only for a couple weekends a year.

I was a girl scout and remember making baked apples - that's it.

When my girls were little I became a Brownie Leader. I ordered some materials from GSA for Women's History month and was surprised and very pleased to read the official GSA stance on homosexuality. While the BSA was ousting homosexuals and labeling them as perverts the GSA was preaching that sexual orientation is something you are born with - it is as natural as brown eyes.

GSA has the power to be a very feminist organization and they provide good support for that. As others have noted, it's all about the troop leader. Some are more feminist than others.

There is a great feminist version of the Girl Scouts, without all the religion and the homophobia! Check out Girls Incorporated!

I'm currently still in girl scouts (I'm a high school sophomore), and I can say that I really like it.

My mum's the leader, and we do lots of different things. We once had a MaryKay thing (that was more about 'proper skin care' though... but we liked it), we did a class on stage makeup (not the showing-up-from-far-away, the bloody scars and burns sort of makeup. Wicked fun). We've done sewing, though some of it was for community service (we made winter hats. and sometimes its just plain useful to be able to sew up your socks or whatever, if they get all hole-y), and (so far) low-grade sort of first-aid. I'm nto sure if we're quite old enough for CPR certification... We, erm, actually don't do much real camping, but we do lots of overnights and do TONS of community service, especially working with younger girls.

I wouldn't say that its the most feminist troop ever, but we have lots of fun, and now that we're in high school and two of our troop members go to different schools, its a really good way to keep in touch with each other.

There's a great girl scout camp up in New Hampshire... they do all sorts of summer things, so you can go hardp-core camping or hiking, go kayaking in lakes/ocean, do different types of sailing, or other outdorsy things... or you can do more artsy-craftsy stuff, so no one gets stuck having to do things more "girly" or "boy-y" than they want.

whilst I listened to my brother's tales of knot tying

sigh. this would have been very useful for many of us here, I imagine. ;)

I also suddenly remembered my first and only experience with summer camp, the summer before first or second grade. the brochure clearly said, "fishing," so I brought my bamboo pole. at registration they wondered why I brought the pole, since fishing was "only for the boys' section." I ended up excelling in rifles and archery...you can't take the hunter out of the girl!

I loved Girl Scouts, and echo the idea that the leader makes a difference. Also, someone mentioned the portion from cookie sales- there are different bakeries in differnt states that offer different cuts of profits versus the cost of the cookies, which is why my nieces in a lower-income area can sell cookies for $2.50 a box and the girls out here sell them for $4.50. If no one can afford your cookies in your town, you make no profit.

I went on this amazing "Wider Opportunity" when I graduated 8th grade from GS- Porpoises, Planets and Polymers. We had an amazing time at Sea World with the marine biologists, learned about plastics and other science type stuff at a college science center and then had the space portion- a trip to a Nasa Glenn Research Center and we were treated to this really condecending lecture where and they didn't teach us much of anything at all- the lecturer said something really snide and a leader turned to us right in front of him and said "you will come across people like Mr. so-in-so in your life who think you can't do things because you're women. They are jerks, and you should ignore them." and we left. It was pretty cool.

Troop 429, New Lenox, Illinois here!

If you want to start a group for young feminists, kind of like the Girl Scouts, join the Girl Scouts and start there!! The quality of the experience is SO incredibly dependent on what the leaders bring to the table. It's the only activity I won't let my 11-year-old daughter quit, even though sometimes her leaders veer off into girly-girly land. When I see that happening, I try to step in and offer suggestions and then I volunteer to make things happen. I think having young hip leaders with a vision, instead of moms who only take on a troop because they feel like they have to, would be such a wonderful opportunity for the girls AND the leaders!

The Girl Scouts have a relatively flat leadership hierarchy, which is good and bad. Good, because each troop has a lot of flexibility and autonomy, but if the leadership isn't very creative, there isn't a lot you can do except find a different troop.

And of course, it's the same old story as far as funding for girls' organizations, so the faciltities and camps and opportunities just aren't as wonderful, in general, as the boys'. But my daughter's troop went to White Pines Dude Ranch in Oregon, Illinois, least year. It was a great experience for them, and for me as well - I went to the same camp as an 12-year-old Girl Scout with MY mother when she was my [very cool and young] troop leader. :-)

Dday, the troop you interacted with that was concerned with gossip and boys and such might well have been my troop. (Brownies, mid-80's, Western Maryland, but I can't remember the number.)

It was one of the lame "ladylike" and "arts and crafts and nothing more" troops, and very clique-y. Of course, I was among the least popular members, and got fed up with the whole thing after a year of nothing but arts and crafts and gardening, all of which I enjoyed, but I wanted to do what the boy scouts did, too.

We did go camping exactly once, in conjunction with the boy scouts. I asked why the girls stayed in barracks but the boys got to sleep in tents. The answer was pretty much "that's just the way it is, you can't sleep in a tent."

Although they didn't bring in a Mary Kay rep (so messed up!), the leaders were the prissy, my-kid-is-a-little-angel-that-can-do-no-wrong types. I got really fed up with them telling me to sit down and be quiet (I was the definition of quiet at that age!) while their little bratty monsters were allowed to do whatever they felt like at any time. Feh.

Now I'm trying to camp and hike and pick up some survival skills to make up for lost time. :P

I was a brownie briefly in America when I was five, but don't remember much about it.

I was a brownie in the UK for longer, and the main thing I remembered was the nation-wide sponsored tea making competition for brownies.

Years later the Scouts decided to open their doors to girls as well as boys – cue mass exodus of girls from tea-making to fire building!

I was a girl scout. And I think it already is feminist boot camp. It just depends on the quality of the troop leaders. I got a computer science badge and an aeronautics badge. Of course I also got the art to wear badge, and lots of horse badges, but that was because we choose the badges we wanted to go for.

I am sorry to say I have to echo several here who are disenchanted with the Girl Scounts. My troop did lame crafting and cookie selling only - even the camp I went to was lame we only got to spend the night one night and I remember most having it pounded into our heads how important it was to be clean and to speak only when spoken to. Ugh.
I was always envious of the trips and activities my brothers had with Boy Scouts (all of them are Eagle Scouts).

I LOVED Girl Scouts -- and cookie selling especially. It was the first leadership skill I really ever learned -- the ability to go walk up to a stranger and persuade them to do something you wanted them to do. It was terrifying ringing each doorbell, not knowing what kind of response I'd get, and that I'd be the one to have to deal with it. And so powerful as, door after door, I learned that I could. Even the rejections -- I could get "professionally" rejected and move on to find the next success. Seriously, cookie sales were formative for me.

But so was horseback riding, and the trips to court and council meetings to watch local government in action, and camping in tents in the woods, cooking over a campfire. Even picking which badges *I* wanted to pursue, and having it be cool to do sewing one day and then when that was done to pick math or woodworking or whatever.

So why did I quit in 7th Grade? Because the cool girls were over it by then and they mocked me for belonging. Sad (practically pathetic) but true. I still regret it.

I was a Brownie, and later a Girl Scout. My two best friends from my neighboorhood were in the troop too and I always had fun with them. I went to a Catholic school complete with ugly uniforms and remember being immensely proud to wear my GS uniform on the days we had afterschool meetings- Wednesdays (how do i still know that?)Anyway, i can't recall everything that we did, we did various arts & crafts, made little field trips around town, and larger trips like ice skating on saturdays and I know we must have camped at least a few times. We focused on civic causes, safety lessons, earning badges etc. My group was pretty focused, I have to thank my kick-ass Mom who was the leader for at least a few of those years.I know she probably still has my sash with all the badges! Unfortunately my troop somewhat disbanded after 5th grade and that was it. I have fond memories of Scouting and I would encourage my daughters( if and when I have any!) to join. thanks for letting me share...

Okay, I had to post. Mainly because Girl Scouts was such an important part of my life and played a big role in making me who I am today. We went camping, mountain biking, hiking, we donated time to Charities, we also spent 5 years saving up from fund raisers and cookie selling to go to Russia to out town's sister city. It was there that I first witnessed just how well off America is for myself I think it jump started my interest in social justice. Our troop had 5 girls, all of us friends, we had girls of different ethnic backgrounds and when I shared that I wasn't religious no one ever asked me to pray. Unlike Boy Scouts which gets caught up in religion and "morals" girls scouts just helped us to be ourselves and learn what it meant to be strong women who wanted to make difference.

Okay, I had to post. Mainly because Girl Scouts was such an important part of my life and played a big role in making me who I am today. We went camping, mountain biking, hiking, we donated time to Charities, we also spent 5 years saving up from fund raisers and cookie selling to go to Russia to out town's sister city. It was there that I first witnessed just how well off America is for myself I think it jump started my interest in social justice. Our troop had 5 girls, all of us friends, we had girls of different ethnic backgrounds and when I shared that I wasn't religious no one ever asked me to pray. Unlike Boy Scouts which gets caught up in religion and "morals" girls scouts just helped us to be ourselves and learn what it meant to be strong women who wanted to make difference.

Okay, I had to post. Mainly because Girl Scouts was such an important part of my life and played a big role in making me who I am today. We went camping, mountain biking, hiking, we donated time to Charities, we also spent 5 years saving up from fund raisers and cookie selling to go to Russia to out town's sister city. It was there that I first witnessed just how well off America is for myself I think it jump started my interest in social justice. Our troop had 5 girls, all of us friends, we had girls of different ethnic backgrounds and when I shared that I wasn't religious no one ever asked me to pray. Unlike Boy Scouts which gets caught up in religion and "morals" girls scouts just helped us to be ourselves and learn what it meant to be strong women who wanted to make difference.

Okay, I had to post. Mainly because Girl Scouts was such an important part of my life and played a big role in making me who I am today. We went camping, mountain biking, hiking, we donated time to Charities, we also spent 5 years saving up from fund raisers and cookie selling to go to Russia to out town's sister city. It was there that I first witnessed just how well off America is for myself I think it jump started my interest in social justice. Our troop had 5 girls, all of us friends, we had girls of different ethnic backgrounds and when I shared that I wasn't religious no one ever asked me to pray. Unlike Boy Scouts which gets caught up in religion and "morals" girls scouts just helped us to be ourselves and learn what it meant to be strong women who wanted to make difference.

Okay, I had to post. Mainly because Girl Scouts was such an important part of my life and played a big role in making me who I am today. We went camping, mountain biking, hiking, we donated time to Charities, we also spent 5 years saving up from fund raisers and cookie selling to go to Russia to out town's sister city. It was there that I first witnessed just how well off America is for myself I think it jump started my interest in social justice. Our troop had 5 girls, all of us friends, we had girls of different ethnic backgrounds and when I shared that I wasn't religious no one ever asked me to pray. Unlike Boy Scouts which gets caught up in religion and "morals" girls scouts just helped us to be ourselves and learn what it meant to be strong women who wanted to make difference.

Hi all -- I'm a long-time reader, first-time poster here; I just wanted to encourage everyone who says they've been thinking about getting involved with the Scouts or starting their own group to go for it! I have so many great memories of rock climbing, canoeing, backpacking, and working in the community. It was such a positive experience that, when I got involved with SWE (Society of Women Engineers), a few of us from the group decided to partner with some local GS troops to encourage young women to develop interest in math and science. Mostly Mr. Wizard stuff, but it's great fun, and totally rewarding to work with girls who will grow up to run the world!

"We once had a MaryKay thing (that was more about 'proper skin care' though... but we liked it), we did a class on stage makeup (not the showing-up-from-far-away, the bloody scars and burns sort of makeup. Wicked fun). We've done sewing, though some of it was for community service (we made winter hats. and sometimes its just plain useful to be able to sew up your socks or whatever, if they get all hole-y), and (so far) low-grade sort of first-aid."

Did you get to combine any of these pursuits? Imagine teaching scouts about skin care and sewing at once by showing them how to sew wounds shut...

I had an amazing troop throughout high school. I credit the good experience with the fact that our leaders were not our mothers or friend's mothers but rather some slightly older women who wanted to do it.

My girl scout troop was definitely a clique of popular girls that I didn't fit in with. We did a few cool things, I especially remember learning about famous women for Women's History Month, but most of the time it was crafts. I HATED crafts.

Girl scouts was the scene of my first activist experience though. We were sewing little sachet pillows, and I didn't want to learn to sew. I wanted to go to camp. So I jumped up on the table and started yelling about how it wasn't fair that the boy scouts got to go to camp and we didn't. No one paid any attention to me, but it sure felt good. I was probably about 9 at the time.

i'm a GS lifer, active from age 5 straight up through earning my gold award - same with my older sister and my three cousins. my mother was a girl scout and her mother was a girl guide.

while girl scout day and resident camps were definitely the first to expose and involve me in feminism and feminist activism, i agree with an earlier post that the GS Gold Award never gets the credit it deserves. it's a tough thing for a teenager to accomplish solo, arguably moreso than the over-publicized Eagle Scout. when i received the award with six other girls in san francisco, we couldn't even get it announced in the paper -- the guy's Eagle Scout awards were given a private ceremony with the mayor and nightly news coverage. what gives?

Mmm. I feel you. My boyfriend (Eagle Scout) openly admits I did much more than him for my award, but how did we both get rewarded?

Me: Paper mention X4, small dinner at the Holiday Inn for the entire council.
Him: Black tie affair at the Pittsburgh Hilton.

I was very bitter. Even more so that a lot of Boy Scouts consider Girl Scouts a joke.

I loved Girl Scouts! The only reason I didn't stick around after Junior Scouts was that our town didn't have a Cadette troop.

Our Junior troop had a hard-core camping enthusiast for a leader, so I consider myself lucky. In fact, we learned a lot of outdoor survival skills on our camping weekends; how to use a compass, how to build a fire, things like that. I don't remember a lot of "girlie girls" in our troop, so I think that was lucky too.

I hear that there's an active Brownie and Junior troop here at the elemetary school. I'm talking my daughter into signing up this fall.

ambidextrous amazon - I was Central Maryland so it probably wasn't your troop but it sounds similar.

I agree that there isn't enough institutional support for hard-core outdoors activities, especially at the upper levels. Our troop solved this by using a lot of the Boy Scout hikes and other programs, so the back of my vest had a lot of boy scout patches (there is a difference between badges, which are officially sanctioned and patches, which commemorate experiences more than accomplishments). One of the leaders in our cluster (group of troops in the same area who get together to do bigger activities) was married to a former boy scout leader and they were wonderful and true outdoors people. So when we went to Gettysburg, for example, we did a 13-mile hike around the battlefield and got more of an in-depth look at the history than what you would get from the visitor's center tour.

But experiences like this would never have happened if we didn't have amazing leaders willing and able to take the time and energy to go that extra step. GS is by no means a perfect organization but I think it is so cool that a group like this with such institutionally progressive and feminist values is considered mainstream in America.

You probably shouldn't started me on this topic because I could go on forever.

Oooh, I also wanted to point out what I consider one of their coolest iniatives, Girl Scouts Beyond Bars. This program is for girls whose mothers are in prison. The girls have weekly meetings without their mothers and about once a month they have troop meetings at prison where the mothers are active in leading. I think this is such a wonderful idea for a population that desparately needs the benefits that scouting can provide.

My godmother ran a kick-ass winter-camping community-serving things-building cadette troop. She lived in another state, though.

I quit after one year as a crafty junior. We went camping once and the LEADER'S HUSBAND made the fire and wouldn't let us set up our tents by ourselves. I had been real camping with the fam already and knew what was up. After the sleepover and fashion show Mum was ok with me quitting. :)

Now I'm thinking I should be helping out. Net positive!

I was a Girl Scout for 13 years, and even though there were a few years around junior high where I mostly joined so I could go to camp in the summer, it was a huge part of my life. In fact, two of my best friends today are women who were in my high school Girl Scout troop.

Girl Scouting really did so much for me as a person, and for me as a feminist. At camp the only men were the man who was the year-round caretaker of our camp, and occasionally a cook or even, one year, a nurse. During the rest of the year, especially in my Seniors (high school age) troop, it gave me a chance to learn and explore without having to deal with BS sex-role politics.

We spent a day learning about the local Air National Guard base and what went on there - something that would either never have been offered to me through my high school because of my gender, or which would have required me making some kind of specific stance socially/politically, when really I just wanted to check out the cool planes and see what else went on there.

For me, Girl Scouts also filled the role I think church fills for a lot of people who are religious - there was always some kind of charity activity going on, or a fundraising activity for our own troop going on, and so there was a wide variety of interesting activities which I didn't necessarily need to arrange myself, and which I knew I would be doing with at least a few people I knew and was friendly with. It let me be active in my community without worrying that "I'd get there and no one would like me" which y'know, when you're 16, can be pretty scary.

Oh, also - that troop during my high school years was led by a woman and her husband, and they basically gave us the tools we needed to do what we wanted to do, and kept relationships with various groups going over the years, which really helped keep the possibilities available to our troop wide open. But the actual decisions on what to do and when? That was up to us. It was a completely life-changing experience for me.

I'm a Girl Guide leader (Canada). I had the same crafty, no camping experience many people here have shared, and I quit as a girl (jealous of my brother's Scout experience).

In university, I felt I needed an outlet from my male-dominated engineering program, and signed on to be a leader. I vowed that the girls in my unit would have the experience I wanted to have. Nine years later, I'm still at it.

Our unit has done: backpacking, constructing tables, building a wooden boat (we rowed in it), scuba diving, bike repairs, a trip to the US, outdoor cooking, hiking, canoeing, service projects, cultural and reglious awareness badges (we even had a Wiccan visit us), science and engineering badges, and lots of camping (two or three times a year, excluding summer camps).

The girls regularly tell us that they are really glad there are no boys. They also see women doing everything - chopping wood, cooking meals, pitching tents, etc. and they're expected to do this stuff too.

I've gotten a lot out of Guiding too - going to India, an engineering/science scholarship, and teaching and leadership experience.

You all might be interested in the recent media campaign Girl Guides of Canada started running. The idea is to position Guiding as an alternative or antedote to the images girls see constantly in the media. It's been controversial, but we really need to break through this image of cookies and baking and sewing and crafts. (Frankly, I'm the least crafty person you can imagine. We do maybe two crafts a year).

http://girlsneedguides.ca/

I, too, was a Girl Scout from Brownies (before they had Daisies) all the way to senior year in high school, coincidentally in New Lenox, IL (hi, JunieB!). For the most part, it was pretty cliquish, especially in high school, when we basically just gossiped during our troop meetings. I do remember one of those meetings where we had a really good conversation about sex and birth control, which was followed the next week by the one home-schooled girl in our troop being pulled by her mother. :(

The best thing I got out of Girl Scouts, though, was the Wider Opportunities mentioned above. I went to three: one at Mt. St. Helens, one at a field research station in the Rocky Mts. near Boulder, and one in Seattle. At the time, they were attended by girls from all over the country who applied to go. My council paid the registration fee (a few hundred dollars), which made it possible for me to go at all. I had such a fantastic time on Wider Ops, learned so much about science and being a scientist, and kept in touch with some of the girls for over a decade afterwards. Unfortunately, it's my understanding that they changed Wider Ops so that now a whole troop applies to go, which I think is stupid and negates the whole point of the event, which was to broaden your horizons by meeting other Scouts from around the country.

That having been said, I also have to note that the worst experience of my life as far as volunteering with an organization came from being a "cookie person" (not a cookie mom, since I don't have kids) a few years ago in Boston. I called up the local council and volunteered to help however they needed me. I was assigned to be the cookie coordinator for my service area, so I went to the first meeting of the troop leaders and introduced myself. When I met the previous coordinator and asked her for any advice in the position, her face just froze as she said, "I wasn't aware that I'd been replaced." The shock on my face convinced her and the others that I wasn't part of whatever nasty politics were going on, but it left an awful taste in my mouth, and after carrying out my cookie duties for the year, I quit and never went back.