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Socially Right, Economically Left

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Boys and girls usually don't even like playing together as children. Lol
Back when I was in kindergarten, boys and girls played together all the time, and it was not unusual for boys to have girl friends and vice versa. We even had mixed sports classes in the first couple of years of elementary school.

Of course, it's possible that children in the US are segregated along gender lines much earlier than elsewhere in the West.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
You know, I cant quite remember anymore. I recall watching it play it in the newspapers years ago, and then the backlash from the Girl Scouts... Here are some articles I found that talk a bit about the changes.

Why Do the Boy Scouts Want to Include Girls?

I'm a former Girl Scout — and I think the Boy Scouts' plan to allow female members is a pseudo-progressive ploy

Welcoming Girls, Boy Scouts Program Is Now Scouts BSA

If I'm understanding right, they lifted the ban on girls themselves, after pressure and membership loss.
It's interesting, because I don't remember there ever being a dedicated Girl Scout organization present in my home country. It's always been just "the Scouts" - which, in recent decades, meant "boys and girls both".

(edit)
In either case, I don't think it's fair to segregate youth organizations based on gender. Both boys and girls have the right to choose whatever activities they deem most fun, and parents have the right to choose for their kids whatever activities they consider most fulfilling to the development of their offspring.

If boys want to bake cookies or go on trips with girls, they ought to be just as well accepted as girls who want to build tents and rough it in the wilderness.
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
I'm 31. I was a child in the '90s and a teen in the '00s. :rolleyes:

I'm a bit older than you and I can guaranty you that kids these days have changed a lot from our days. Then again, when I was a child, I often played with girls my age and today most of my friends are women. Maybe it's just you afterall.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm a bit older than you and I can guaranty you that kids these days have changed a lot from our days. Then again, when I was a child, I often played with girls my age and today most of my friends are women. Maybe it's just you afterall.

I'm 36. Boys and girls didn't play together a lot when I was a kid, either. Until around 13ish, when it became 'cool' to have friends of the opposite gender. Location could lend to that, not sure. Or, maybe you were unique.

It's interesting, because I don't remember there ever being a dedicated Girl Scout organization present in my home country. It's always been just "the Scouts" - which, in recent decades, meant "boys and girls both".

(edit)
In either case, I don't think it's fair to segregate youth organizations based on gender. Both boys and girls have the right to choose whatever activities they deem most fun, and parents have the right to choose for their kids whatever activities they consider most fulfilling to the development of their offspring.

If boys want to bake cookies or go on trips with girls, they ought to be just as well accepted as girls who want to build tents and rough it in the wilderness.

I was active in the Girl Scouts until middle school; its pretty visible here. One of the complaints with it has been in recent years is that there's no scouting in Girl Scouts; its becoming all business and career oriented. This is fine and dandy, but its misleading. If I sign my child up for scouting, I want them outside, scouting. I think this contributed to an increasing amount of girls being interested in the Boy Scouts here. A friend of mine had devoted much of her life to Girl Scouts, but she's become disgusted with it due to push to ditch the outdoors aspects of it, and has cut ties with it.

Personally, I always thought Spiral Scouts looked cool; a Pagan based scouting open to both genders. However, its not always available, as the organization isn't large(there wasn't one here that was active).
 

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
The problem with socially conservative views is that while they can be done in libertarian ways (I mean in the etymological sense of the term), that often isn't the reality: by and large social conservatives seek to use the force of law to marginalize and beat down those that don't conform to social tradition.

For instance, what does it mean to say that religious organizations could "pull out of" homosexual marriage? Prima facie, it seems completely fair that if a church doesn't want to wed a homosexual couple using the church's own ceremonies, that doesn't seem very problematic. But what about for instance a religious hospital (of which there are many in the US)? I plan on marrying at some point, should the hospital be able to treat my wife differently in terms of visitation rights where familial relations are required? That would be problematic.

So perhaps it's possible to support socially conservative views without marginalizing people directly or indirectly, but this is not how the majority of political conservatives operate: in the US at least, they often have full intentions to truncate the rights of those that don't fit their traditional mold. That's a problem that a socially conservative political party would have to address to be taken seriously.
 

Meow Mix

Chatte Féministe
Additionally @Rival , in an earlier post you had said something like "people would be able to vote on these issues" (paraphrased).

That can be problematic in its own right: directly voting on whether to strip rights away from other people is a serious problem, and the reason why protections for peoples' identities is usually codified into law. We can't just vote directly on whether or not we think red-headed people can get married for a reason. This is just two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Obviously technically anything is still possible (if enough people really wanted to vote away some group's rights, all they would have to do is get enough states together for a Constitutional amendment allowing them to do so), but that's obviously a completely different ballgame than a simple and direct vote to marginalize a group.

Edit: Also apologies to all for USA-centric analogies, just using what I know.

Edit2: If you're not a traditional Christian, I would be careful about granting people the right to directly vote on whether other people have rights in the USA. They might come for you next if you give them this power.
 
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