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0 pointsTeknoman1173y ago0 comments

I mean, I get it in ways. Boy Scouts has many policies which contrast with the liberal/progressive worldview the members of technology industry tend to hold - explicit religious affiliation, a religiously influenced moral code, gender exclusive, military-esque conduct, etc.

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.

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Spooky233y ago

Morals and principles don't mean much without rules and authority behind them.

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.

rayiner3y ago

> 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).

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.

tptacek3y ago

It doesn't sound plausible to me that there has been any point in the last several generations where it was considered "not a big deal" for high school teachers to have relationships with their students. That apparently happened at my high school, once that I know of, during my time there, and it was a very big deal indeed. I can't give you proof that my experience generalizes, but I claim that it does, and that my claim is unremarkable. Whatever you claim the norm was in the 1970s, it clearly didn't survive, which seems fatal to your argument.

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