Female wants to join Boy Scouts

[Aroura]

All I know is that I was very jealous of the boy scouts. I was a girl scout the entire time from Daisy to Senior and we were so sheltered. We didn't get to do half the shit the boys did. Our camping was not real camping, it was in a camp that had the trails marked out and you could see people through the trees just 'in case' you got lost but hell they never let you go more than a few steps away from the leaders. No swimming, always had a restroom within sight, running water was a must. I mean seriously it was us sleeping in tents in a small town made to look like camp. Then there were days we 'learned' how to do our hair, nails, how to braid (never how to tie knots), and to sew. We were treated like housewives in training. I would say it had to do with my particular troop but I was in one for Daisies, another for Brownies and juniors, and a third for the last two levels.

Might be location.

Our camp had one spiggot for potable water. No electricity at all. There was an old barn nearby for storage of equipment, and plenty of porta pottys.
Last year was a medieval theme, but no princesses here! Our girls did archery, plant identification nature hikes, campfire building, food education, and yes also some crafts. But the crafts included medival chemistry. There was a scavenger hunt, which included human jousting, which was hilarious.

There are badges for things like cosmetics, which drives me up a wall, but i guess those exist for girls who like them

I let my girls vote on which badges to work on each year. They did ocean exploration, which was the best and included sleeping in the shark tunnel at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Another was bug life, which included outdoor hiking and nature viewing, they dont disturb the plants or bugs though we turned over a few rocks and looked under bits of treebark, it also included the science of composting, and we build a compost heap behind the building, which other troops have continued using, so yay!
We did a lot of the STEM badges, which are pretty basic for daisies and brownies, but still cool, like make your own ice cream in a ziplock bag, or learning about acids, bases and neutrals.

Leaders and locayions matter. My co-leader fought me on almost all the educational stuff. She hated World Thinking Day, even though the girls, including her own, loved it. She wanted to do crafts pretty much all the time. The girls wanted to put on an educational ocean puppet show at the end of one year, to show what they had learned to family and friends, and she even fought me on that. She absolutely had a tantrum about the aquarium trip, which was the largest thing i ever organized, saying her daughter couldnt handle it. I think her daughter was mildly autistic, but she refused to discuss it so i did my best to accomodate her on the little info i had.
The other girls were so excited about the sleepover at the aquarium, they talked and planned it for months. My co leaders daughter begged to go, so her mom relented and they both came.....and had a GREAT time!

Anyway, my point is it varies. I think boy scouts is more rigid, in that a troop from western Oregon might have pretty much the same experiences as a troop from New York, or Alabama.

Girl scouts allows more flexibility, which can sadly result in arts and crafts time, or worse, which is really disappointing.

I left the organization mostly because of the heavy focus on cookie sales. It did allow for awesome things like the aquarium trip and summer camp, but omg it was just too much for me with a completely useless coleader and cookie moms who lost hundreds of dollars, or in one case, 3 cases of cookies.

Mmm, i think im rambling, lol. I'm sorry for your poor experience, though not surprised to hear it.