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It's really sad to see things like this. Boy Scouts was one of the best parts of my childhood. Both my parents were heavily involved - dad was the Scout Master, mom was the merit badge counselor for backpacking and other woodland activities, my younger sisters came on many of the trips.
It served as a healthy foil to my absolute infatuation with learning about technology.
I would send my kids to Baden-Powell scouting if that was an option.
That's the single biggest problem with scouting - your experience is going to be largely dependent on the adult leadership. You can have dramatically different experiences depending on what pack or troop you're in and leadership changes often make what was a good experience a poor one.
The high-adventure trips were the best part for me. The multi-week canoeing trip in the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada (northern-tier), multi-week sailing trip and snorkeling in the Florida Keys, the Philmont backing trip, etc. Our troop took backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, Talladega national forest in Alabama, etc. Many fun memories with family and friends.
I was in 3 troops as a kid due to moving around. The troop in the Chicago area was a fantastic example of a by-the-book Boy Scout troop. The scouts ran the show and the adults only got involved if we were about to do something very stupid (making non-dangerous mistakes and learning from them is an important part of maturing), or if the decision required an adult to sign off (spending troop money, etc.). The one in Alabama was more laid back, kind of boy and adult led, but the adults definitely did more of the work than the chicago area troop. The one in the bay area I joined ended up being a rich kid dick measuring contest and I quickly left the troop, which was the end of my time in the Boy Scouts.
[1]: https://www.adventurescoutsusa.org/#:~:text=Adventure%20Scou....
What's the difference?
vs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America
Baden-Powell scouting is co-ed, non-religious, and founded in the 70s. Boy Scouts of America is the 'original' version, and, as recently as 15 years ago (I think some of this has changed since) explicitly excluded atheists, girls, and gay kids. BSA leadership is (or was, I think this has changed) heavily influenced by conservative Mormons.
Also, they culturally appropriate the fuck out of Native American culture. Think white suburban dads dancing around with costume jewelry and plastic headdresses dancing 'native style' dances to 'commune with the Great Spirit of the land'.
I'm glad of my time spent in BSA, but I wish I'd had the opportunity for BP instead.
For an organization that explicitly advertises itself as a morally driven environment, it's extremely hypocritical for it to have any level of an abuse problem (sexual or otherwise).
That being said, it's been having an identity crisis for years, far longer than the circa-2018/19 attention on getting them to allow women. Obviously, like school, all of the troops are difference and experience their own unique sets of issues.
I was in Boy Scouts from 2004 to 2010, and Cub Scouts before then (1999 to 2004). I suppose I was lucky to start my adventure with a pack and later troop that was located in a liberal and wealthy suburb of Chicago that counted many highly educated people among its population (right down the street from Fermilab).
By 1999, they'd already started allowing women to participate as leaders. My den leader was a woman, many of the instructors were women. Cub Scouts (at least my experience with it) didn't have the same religious aspect that the boy scouts did. Our pack was chartered with a school, in contrast to Boy Scouts which typically charters with a religious organization (church, mosque, synagogue, etc.).
The actual material in the handbook and the overall organization has been ever increasingly non-denominational and non-christian-specific for years. While it wasn't explicitly accepting of atheists or agnostics, most troops don't really care that much about it. Religious service is not a required part of the activities, and by 2010 it'd been watered down to the point that you could barely recognize that you're participating. I was openly agnostic in my troop in Alabama. Moms were also openly encouraged to participate as leaders in the troops I was in. My mom was the backpacking merit badge counselor among other outdoor and survivalist activities.
The whole "exclusion of young women and homosexuals" sentiment can be taken a few ways. Obviously in 2022 it's a lamentable position. It's definitely rooted in the very American religious theme that sex before marriage is bad, therefore anyone who creates a situation where it's possible is also bad. So in order to avoid temptation, you must separate the sexes. Homosexuality turns that on its head because the boys can be attracted to the other boys.
No one had an answer how to resolve concerns, so no one changed anything. When the social progressive movement really got off the ground in the late '10s and was flagrantly demanding sweeping and immediate change to long-standing groups, they were kind of blindsided. Venture crew was a co-ed organization that allowed women to access the Boy Scout high adventure camps, but Girl Scouts was not an equivalent organization to BSA. It has a lot less national direction and troops were very different. Some of my coworkers in California have their daughters in it, and they sound like their having a similar experience to what I had in Boy Scouts. However, when my sisters went in Alabama, they were trying to turn them into proper southern housewives. Hence why they tagged along with my troop as "honorary Boy Scouts".
The appropriation of Native American culture other comments mentioned is also lamentable, at least the part where "white suburban dads jump around in costumes". For the most part it's not too bad, most of the call outs use their culture as an example of one that was more respectful of nature, in contrast with the European colonial worldview the US was largely embraced in their interactions with the Native Americans.
The genius and nasty aspect of Boy Scouts is that they integrated with other institutions. So they got to inherit the authority of the sponsoring institution, but they also inherited the negative and had a bias to look away from things. They also tended to be tight with local law enforcement, and alot of sexual abuse was never dealt with because of those informal relationships.
In my mind, this stuff isn't a political issue. My original point was that today, every one of these organizations requires that people in contact with children get background checked and have some level of training. That's not perfect, but at least known abusers are kept out. I don't care about political bullshit - whatever you believe whatever TV you watch, your children should never get molested.
Unfortunately, any category of organization where adults have authority over children will have some level of sexual abuse. Our daughter's fancy--and extremely progressive--private school recently investigated itself and concluded that it had protected teachers who had relationships with students over several decades: https://www.capitalgazette.com/education/ac-cn-key-school-in...
Indeed, studies show that sexual abuse in schools is extremely common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment_in_education... ("In their 2002 survey, the AAUW reported that, of students who had been harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or other school employees. One survey that was conducted with psychology students reports that 10% had sexual interactions with their educators; in turn, 13% of educators reported sexual interaction with their students.").
Your points about the Boy Scouts are will taken. Coming from the opposite side of the aisle, I would say something similar about what happened at my kid's school. It was an outgrowth of the school's liberalism--specifically the male-dominated sexual liberalism of the 1970s and 1980s that tried to normalize sexualization of teenagers. Teachers would have parties and invite students--this is a K-12 school mind you--and relationships between students and teachers were open secrets. It's not that nobody knew, it's that nobody thought it was a big deal.
But the larger point is that sexual abuse happens in pretty much every class of organization, though the specifics are different in each. My complaint is that the media reports on sexual abuse in churches and Christian-oriented organizations in a very different way than when the same thing happens in secular and liberal organizations. And that's not actually good for anyone.
